Summon's Exile
by Impassive Purple
Summary: A human, a bird, a few foxes, and a badger sounds like the start of a bedtime story; it was the start of a boy who became a hero to his world, a black sheep to his village, a traitor to his kin, and finally a risk to humanity. Honestly, the title "Sage of Decay" fit him rather nicely. In an ironic sorta way.
1. Out Of The Frying Pan

_**Hello; ladies and gentlemen of some ages. Hopefully not small children, because this is going to be rated M. My 'idea guy' might want lemons. And I can't say I'm entirely opposed to writing them, cause' whatever.**_

 _ **Welcome to… Summon's Exile. Name is a WIP; we came up with it in like 2 minutes.**_

 _ **I'm Impassive Purple. Yeah, yeah, if you've read my profile (Probably none of you because I'm a nobody) you can see the little message that says that I wasn't going to be doing Naruto fanfiction for a bit… Well, it's been a 'bit', and this isn't exactly 'my' story. Even if I'm the one kinda writing it.**_

 _ **Don'tblamemeifitgetsbadokay?Okay**_

 _ **Forewarning; It's pretty half baked. If you're expecting my life's work, you won't be finding it here. Or probably anywhere else for a long time. And...**_ _ **Naruto has a sister in this (I can hear you groaning) as I caved to writing the trope. Though, no incest, or neglect, or any of that shit, because neither of us wanted to do that.**_ _ **Though, uh... some other slightly, er, "radical" ideas have been contemplated.**_

 _ **Welp. Here we go.**_

* * *

"Hey daddy…" a small red haired, purple eyed girl who couldn't be older than four, spoke up as she poked the flowers sitting on the tombstone. "I wanted to ask… Was mommy a… uhh… shinobi?"

Minato unclasped his hands, and blinked at his young daughter, before cracking a small smile. "She was a shinobi, yeah, Yuuka. A fantastic shinobi! I think she was a better shinobi than I could ever be."

"Oh. That's cool." a blond haired, blue eyed boy who looked to be around the same age jumped in. "What kind of shinobi?" The girl looked at the blond man as well, waiting to hear his answer as well.

"Well, she…" the father of two started, drawing out his voice. "…was an Uzumaki Kushina kind." he slowly replied. What exactly was he supposed to reply to such a question? His wife had been pretty unique, and had always kinda just specialized in a variety of things.

Both of his children looked on in confusion. Minato saw this and continued, clarifying.

"Well, although she was good at all sorts of things as a shinobi, I don't think there is any one word that could really capture her." he explained, reaching out and ruffling both kids' hair. "She was strong, and awesome, with a beautiful smile and heart of gold… One of a kind. I couldn't possibly compare her to anyone else."

"…That's boring." the boy sounded disappointed, puffing out his cheeks.

"Naruto!" Yuuka squeaked, before leaning over and lightly punching her very slightly older brother on the shoulder. "Don't say that!"

"What? It's true!" Naruto returned, he huffed. "If she wasn't really good at anything, she must have been pretty boring as a shinobi."

Yuuka frowned, while Minato chuckled, sitting back. "I'd be careful; if she heard you saying that, she might just…" he quieted down significantly for effect, forcing them to lean closer to hear him. "Come and get'cha!" he extended both of his arms, grabbed, and hugged them both close to him while he started to tickle their sides.

"Daaaad~!" Naruto struggled against him, hardly containing his giggles, as he tried breaking free.

Yuuka, on the other hand, exploded in laughter, unable to resist. "Heeeey! Daaaaddy~ Why are you tickling me too~!?"

Minato grinned, looking at her. "Hmm… 'cause I felt like it~" he replied, before sticking out his tongue. With his attention focused on Yuuka, Naruto was successful in breaking free, rolling clumsily away from the man with a cry of victory.

"That's not faaaaaaiiir~" she pushed her father away, finally able to get away when he loosened his hold. She stood with a huff, blowing her long rose colored hair away from her eyes, while brushing off her dark skirt.

Laughing, Minato began to stand up. "So are you both ready to go get some dinner?"

Both kids' heads turned and locked onto him so fast he was worried that they may have damaged their necks. "Ramen?!"

As expected. "Eh… Nahhh." the man waved the notion away. They were addicted to that stuff. It couldn't have possibly been healthy."We had ramen yesterday." he continued to think of other dining options, since they were out.

"Oh come on!" Naruto complained, a feeling Yuuka could agree with, as she elaborated on his previous words.

"It's soo good…"

"You two are crazy." Minato stated plainly. Ever since he first took them to that damn ramen stand, he would never hear the end of it, every time he brought up going somewhere to eat. "What about that new wrap place that opened up last month?"

Neither looked particularly impressed at his suggestion. "Skip."

"…Well, ok then…" the man rubbed his chin. "What about the place down the road from our house with the kebabs?"

Yuuka gave him a deadpanned look, even though Naruto looked slightly more satisfied with that option. "Skip."

Minato twitched in annoyance. "Fine. How about-

"Rammmmmmeeeeeeennnnnnn." both kids interrupted in unison, the word becoming a groan as it ended. Minato eventually crumbled. He couldn't help it.

* * *

Minato sighed. Being a single father of twins… if he had to put it one way… sucked. It blew like Kushina on their wedding night. After much begging, he had caved to their requests for ramen, much to his own self-disappointment. Often, he wondered if it were possible that he were a bad parent. Never had he been too good with really young kids.

Even drawing the line on something simple like that was a struggle, even if it were mostly harmless. Yuuka reminded him so much of a slightly less hot-headed Kushina, it was hard to refuse her. And Naruto… well he was always reminded of the "bond" he and his dad had. And didn't want a repeat of it. He refused to be that level of asshole.

Point was… He wasn't really a tough love type when it came to the two.

Except when it came to situations like this. It could be said that he wasn't really an "around 3:00am" person.

Yeah… it just so happened to be around 3:00am.

The sound of something hitting the wall hard, and something else, had jolted him up from his sleep, and he was currently going to investigate. He looked back to see Yuuka still sound asleep and curled up on the bed, drooling all over the sheets and her pajamas, before he exited his room.

"Naruto, I swear, if you're up at this time of night…" the blonde haired man rubbed his left eye, groaning to himself as he trudged to his son's room. He would be more than slightly cranky if he didn't find that his son only knocked something off of his bedside table in his sleep, or something. He couldn't have possibly been going to the bathroom, as the only one in their modest house was right across the hall from the master bedroom, where he slept.

His daughter was usually the one waking him up at strange times because she had nightmares and such, like tonight, but he couldn't remember a time when she had done so past midnight. He could deal with that. This was just a bit outrageous though.

He approached the door to his son's room, raising his eyebrow at the fact that it was closed. That was strange.

Clearing his throat, and getting his 'dad voice' ready, Minato grasped the handle, and swung the door open. "Naruto, just what are you-?"

His voice trailed off.

"Huh?" He scanned the room, before simply staring at the bed. Empty? The blond haired kage blinked. "Naruto?"

Walking over to the closet with narrowed eyes, he pushed the door open. Still nothing. He leaned down checking under the bed as well. Still… nothing?

Slight worry crossed his features. Where exactly was his son then? "Naruto." he called. No reply. He walked out into the hall again. "Naruto!" His voice echoed through the house, before he proceeded to turn said house upside-down.

The bathroom, the kitchen, their porch, inside the fridge, in their small library, his study, every cabinet he could find.

"Oh shit… Oh shit…" he began to chant over and over. His blood began to chill. It was too late for this. Did he go outside? Sneak out the window? _'Damnit'_

Quickly, he ran to the front door, grabbing his weapons pouch on the table on the way, and put on his shinobi sandals. His eyes flickered to his bedroom one last time to check if his daughter had woken up in the commotion or not, but it appeared that she hadn't.

There were no over pronounced yawns, or footsteps that he could hear. No covers moving or anything else. Just to make sure though…

Minato put his hands together in a certain seal, and and three other exact copies of himself formed out of thin air. They all nodded in sync, before he opened the door and exited with two of the clones, while one stayed behind to watch his daughter.

He was trying to keep a level head as his clones and himself split up to search the surrounding area. This had happened once before a few weeks ago, though, just not at this time of night. The sun wasn't even close to being up at the moment, which had him more than a little worried. Because guaranteed there were more shady people out in the streets around this time of night than any time of day. Even in this very pleasant and peaceful part of the village.

Last time, it was a bit before six in the morning, and the boy had apparently been up since many hours earlier and bored out of his mind at staying home and being quiet while his father and sister slept in like logs. However, four and a half years young and overly adventurous didn't go well together in his fatherly opinion. He had hoped getting the two kids into early training might get rid of that sort of 'insomnia'. Apparently not?

Anyway, there wasn't too much of a reason to freak out and call for his ANBU to help him search.

 _Yet._

He had regret doing that the first time, because putting them on edge for no good reason, when they just found his son mere minutes later, was not something he liked doing. His eyes darted between empty streets, in alley ways, anywhere his son could possible be. He couldn't have gone far; that was impossible. He had only heard the sound less than a full minute before he decided to go check it out. Naruto couldn't run fast enough to get out of eyesight range in that amount of time.

However, he was coming up with nothing. If his clones had found him, they would have popped themselves already to inform him. So… "What the hell?"

Reaching down, his hand guided itself on instinct and he grabbed one of his famous kunai from the blue weapons pouch that had been sloppily strapped on his thigh. In one swift movement, he spun and slung the weapon high into the air, before vanishing almost silently.

Appearing near his kunai, he grabbed it in mid-air, scanning the entire block in the moonlight, and street lights, while in the process of free falling. He caught notice of no one else but one of his clones in the distance. His stare was slowly beginning to turn more serious. _Where. Was. Naruto?_

…Ok, now he felt he had a _very_ justified reason.

Hurriedly slinging his kunai downward, he vanished. Now landing crouched on the roof, kunai back in the weapons pouch, his hands began to blaze through several different signs. Minato took a deep breath, and exhaled a bright, narrow stream of flames into the night sky.

The usual Konoha signal for "Functional ANBU, and all nearby shinobi, get over here immediately. There is a problem."

"Hokage-sama...!? Hokage-sama!" Minato turned as he heard a chunin land next to him, breathing heavily, looking extremely alarmed. Said chunin also looked slightly puzzled as he had been ordered to inform the Hokage as soon as possible; but what was he doing out so late on his own, and armed? "Someone has breached the village, sir! Our sensors detected a _huge_ puncture in the barrier, I came to inform you as soon as possible!"

"Breached? Someone infiltrated the village through force…? Minato widened his eyes, dots connecting, and assumptions forming. _'No… it couldn't…'_ he began to try and force down the thoughts. It didn't work.

Naruto was missing and he couldn't find him anywhere. It wasn't hard to put 2 and 2 together. Naruto _wouldn't_ go out at this time; any earlier thought was just trying to reason with the possibility of his sleepless son doing so. But he wouldn't. His head whipped towards his and his children's home, before he turned back to the chunin.

"I need you to put the village on high alert IMMEDIATELY! Gather a team and every tracker you can find-" His mind ground to a halt. "-Hold on; wait here!"

Minato flicked his kunai from the pouch back into the air, and he was gone before it reached the ground. His feet touched the floor of his dining room, before he dashed back to Naruto's room. Hurriedly looking around, he snatched one of the various articles of obviously worn clothing from the floor, before appearing in his dining room again to grab his weapons and white cloak with unmatched speed.

"Daddy…?" he heard a small voice, and he looked over into the hall to see Yuuka awake, with his clone looking curiously at him. Minato paid little direct attention to his daughter, but instead quickly made a one handed seal to pop the clone, before making another one with the fresh information to explain or not explain as it decided, and vanishing.

He was in his house a total of less than 17 seconds, and in front of the loyal chunin as soon as his speed would allow. Minato pushed the yellow colored shirt in the young man's hands.

"Every tracker in the village, I need them on that scent! Rip it into pieces if you need to give each of them samples, I don't care! GO!" the man ordered.

The chunin nodded, now informed of his highly important role to fulfill, and shunshin'd away. Minato next heard someone new appear next to him, and he didn't even need to look to know that it was one of his trusted ANBU.

"Sir!" The masked shinobi reported, while a few others–ANBU and 'regular operation' shinobi alike–also started to appear, having seen the "call".

Minato stood in front of the group, features hardened. "I've just been informed that we've had a breach! Are any of you trackers? I have a lot of reason to believe whoever is responsible for the attack also has my son!"

"Yes, Hokage-sama!" a new voice appeared, the speaker clutching his dog mask over his face with one hand as if he had just managed to put it on, while also adjusting the sword on his back with the other.

' _Kakashi…'_

Minato breath was slightly shaky as he nodded, and not hearing any other speak up, he gestured outward towards the forest. "Then, everyone else, scatter! Inform any other active shinobi who aren't aware to harden security or join in the search!" all of them were gone in seconds.

The blond eyed the masked Kakashi. "Inu; the source should still be fresh. Every second of delay is a second they might be getting further away." he said, voice firm despite the fear he could feel building in his chest.

"Of course-!" The ANBU Black Ops member nodded, before Minato grabbed his shoulder, and they both appeared in Minato's dining room. Both men made their way toward Naruto's room, Kakashi already in the process of summoning a select few of his tracking hounds.

* * *

 **[Earlier, Namikaze Residence]**

Naruto first woke up when he heard a sound outside his window. Rubbing the blur from his eyes, he looked out into the night from between the curtain cracks, squinting.

 _ **Click**_

"…Hello…?" Naruto whispered, not expecting a response. He didn't get one, as expected. The blond strained his ears to see if he could hear anything else.

Silence.

Wierd. For several minutes, he simply stared at the mostly covered window, making sure everything was clear. Slowly, he set his head back on the pillow. Naruto frowned, flipping onto his back, yet continuing to glance every now and then at the glass and fabric covered opening.

 _ **Thud**_

The blond flinched a little at the sound and looked around. It was extremely quiet, however that didn't mean he hadn't heard it. Where did it come from? Sniffling a bit, he removed his blanket, and carefully shifted so that he could put his feet on the ground soundlessly. As deft as an untrained child could manage, Naruto crept over to the window for a closer view.

Peeking out the crack in the side he came face to face with a clean white porcelain mask. Dark eye holes stared directly at him, into his own dulled blue pools.

Naruto felt his breath leave him, but before he could make a single sound a hand clamped hard around his mouth, preventing that. Another arm came around and wrapped around his throat choke-out style, and he could see the shine of a kuani in the light as a body pressed into his back to restrict his movement even more.

"Shh-Shh-Shhhhh…." A female voice whispered in his right ear, causing the blond to begin to shake with fear. "We won't kill you… if you stay _quiet_. Ok…? Waking up your father would not be good for us…"

The figure behind him moved the curtain away with the elbow of the hand on his mouth, before gesturing with her head to the porcelain masked person outside.

Without further hesitation, the window slowly and silently slid open enough for someone to fit through comfortably, now obviously unlocked as opposed to what it had been a few minutes ago.

"No girl." the female voice whispered, as the masked figure began attempting to slide in through the window.

"Fuck, well then why didn't you _close_ the door?" the porcelain masked man jerked a finger towards the door, now carefully standing up.

"I would… but had to get to the only acquirable precious cargo here before he made any sound." the woman who was holding Naruto lightly snapped. "You do it."

A scoff was returned, "Ok… Fine." As quietly as possible, the door was shut. Even Naruto could barely hear it from where he was standing. "So the girl is _definitely_ a no-go?" He stretched.

"She isn't in her room, so no."

"You're sure we can't try and-?"

"No." She shook her head. "We don't know where she is, and we had enough trouble checking this place over to make sure we could get to these two rooms securely. You know how many fuckin' seals are in this house? I should get half the pay for disabling them alone."

The man clenched his fists, but reluctantly nodded. "Ok… Then let's get out." with that said, he started to unwind a cut of rope from his arm.

Naruto felt the nod of his captor, as his eyes began to water. The one with the rope began to wrap his ankles, before moving onto his arms with another one; making sure he was decently immobile. After than was done, the man held an arm outside the window for a few seconds. A signal of some sort. Then, they taped his mouth off, and started to guide him through the window.

A third pair of hand grabbed him, as this next figure stood on the wall under his window. The two left in the house next carefully exited through the window, while the one holding the blond started to walk slowly down the wall, before jumping off of it altogether. His sandals hit the ground under his weight, producing a rather harsh noise.

 _ **Chah**_

"Shinkichi!" the one on the ground–a rather small character as compared to the large on who Naruto was currently being held by–snapped, afraid the sounds made by the man would alert someone, even though they had double, triple, and quadruple checked; sealed, and illusioned the area.

"Shut up. Is our getaway ready?" 'Shinkichi' grunted.

The smaller male grit his teeth. "Yes, but that doesn't mean you can stomp around like some oaf."

"Ladies, ladies." the woman from earlier got between them. "We're half a step away from success. Think about the _money_." she then turned towards the man standing on the wall near the window, before nodding.

The porcelain masked man waved back before trying to shut the window. It must've been slightly jammed, because when it did come down, it produced a dull thud from the exertion of force, that one could probably hear from the bathroom in the house.

 _ **Thud**_

The small statured kidnapper obviously wasn't happy with this noise, glaring at the man who was once near the window, now scaling down to where they all stood. He shook his head. "Just… everyone get ready. I won't be responsible if you aren't prepared for the reverse summon. Got it?" Everyone nodded, while Naruto wondered what exactly they were preparing to do. What was reverse summoning?

Biting his palm to draw blood, the small man palmed the earth below, before unravelling a scroll, and doing the same to it. A few seconds later, marks began to come to life on the ground. He took a deep breath, while Naruto stared at the seal in both wonder and terror.

"I'd suggest that you all… hold _on_."

"This better work, damnit-"

 _ **POOF**_

They all suddenly disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving little trace that they were ever there.

* * *

 **End**

 **This is very much just the origin story chapter, but I'd still love it if you gave this a rating between 1 and 10 in the reviews, if you want to. I certainly don't think it's my best writing, the pace is crazy, but I'm told it carries the idea fine. He likes it though, so that's cool.**

 **Btw, I drew that cover image in a negligible amount of time because I was bored... and after I said I was thinking of cover ideas, he wanted me to color it in and submit it. Me "Looks creepy af, why did I draw this?" - him "It looks great. If you don't like it, make a better one and then you can replace it." - me "Wait. What do I draw?" - him "It's all you man."**

 **That's how that went down. So until I can make a better pic (Most likely never) the cover image is staying.**

 **Anyhow, bye.**


	2. And Into The Forest

**Impassive Purple: Halllooo again. We struggled with this one, but uh… Couldn't really make it much better, per say. Because we are awful. Also I told my Idea Guy to lift his lazy ass fingers and write an A/N, so…**

 **xxTerror33xx: Fuck it. I am the worst writer. Ideas are way easier than writing. Look forward to the next few chapters. Those are the good parts. Fuck you Purp. I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading. If it's bad or just not up to the usual standard blame me (also Purple).**

 **Impassive Purple: You heard it there. Let's go.**

 **PS: FUUUCK IT - Terror**

* * *

" _Shit!_ " Exclaimed the short ninja, blood and paper fluttering behind him as the reverse summoning took effect. The pressure around them was insane, unlike anything he had ever felt before. Like what he'd imagine a horse laid on his chest would feel like.

"What's wrong?" The female ninja still had a grip on his shoulder as space and time bent around them. She obviously wasn't feeling the same sensation, narrowing her eyes in confusion.

"S-something is weighing us d-down!" Not enough chakra? Why wasn't there enough chakra to transport them all? What the hell was so _heavy?! Nothing_ should have been-!

"Br _-aaace…!"_ The man felt his heart start to pump erratically, threatening to explode in his chest. His throat felt dryer than a desert, while chakra started to seep from his skin faster faster than could have ever possibly been allowed to happen naturally.

The scroll in his hands started smoking and burst into flames within his hand and when the short ninja turned his head to look back, Naruto saw that he was bleeding profusely from his eyes and nose. The others instantly recognized the man as dead.

"Is-?" The blond didn't know which shinobi the voice belonged to; as _something_ tugged hard on his midsection, and the next few moments became but a flash.

Naruto didn't have any ninja training. However, even he knew something had gone wrong when the 'summoner' suddenly was ripped into pieces, and he witnessed as similar effects began to eat away at another. The large man holding him.

"Huh- _GYAH!_ " Their previously initiated reverse summon began _eating_ at him, and eating at his chakra. Which he happened to not have quite enough of…

Several things happened at once. Wet blood, and pieces of flesh were spontaneously burst from said man's body, drenching Naruto's clothing, and smearing across his taped mouth and face. Even through the tape he could taste copper.

Next, the entire group including himself, were violently thrown apart. A suction-like howling grew in volume and pitch becoming a shriek. The smoky environment twisted and turned in a thousand directions. Naruto screamed into his gag as the world seemed to end, and he lost all semblance of orientation. He could vaguely hear his living captors doing the same before his senses were completely lost.

* * *

The first thing he felt when everything returned to him was the sheer atmosphere. Naruto felt the air around him. Pleasant, forgiving, and soothingly. The warmth of the sun. The scent of trees, and dirt, and…

Unfortunately, that didn't last very long. Maybe less than a second.

A huge pop sounded around him, like mini explosives. Smoke enveloped the area, and he hit something hard, knocking the breath from his lungs. His grunt was muffled by the blood covered tape around his mouth, as was held to the ground by gravity while he squirmed against his bindings in pain. Tears of pain escaped from his eyes as he then began to curl up. "Mmmph…" _'Oow…! Achh…!'_

"GRAH!" The blond heard a person's gravelly scream, and heavy breathing. He slowly looked up, inhaling the fresh oxygen through his nose, although every motion of his lungs hurt.

The screaming didn't last very long either. The voice whose owner he couldn't see, choked up, before they were vocally silenced, hacking up something.

" _Ak!_ Wha-!" The person spit some sort of liquid on the ground. "Th-" Again, with the coughing. He finally managed to get whatever whatever he was trying to say out, after a few seconds of struggle. "-'THE FUCK, WAS THAT!?"

The smoke by now had cleared. Naruto flopped over onto his other side, facing the speaker as he scratched at the dirt on his hands and knees, blood leaking from his mouth. The one who had previously been wearing the porcelain mask, which had been torn off and tossed away.

Slowly dragging his vision, the blond looked around for his other kidnapper, the lady. She was laid on the earth, barely breathing. He couldn't see whether she was actually awake or not, given the hood draped over her eyes.

"Oi…" The man called, and Naruto looked back at the shinobi, hoping he wasn't talking to him. The shinobi was taking in the sight or his other comrades, or what was left of them, before his eyes locked onto the kunoichi. "Kinuko!"

Drawing his eyes back to the lady, the boy calmed down the barest amount. She had yet to move in response.

"Kinuko!" The man tried again, unsteadily beginning to stand on his feet. "Hey!"

Naruto took this time to take in their surroundings, having not given them much attention until now. Not a whole lot of help, considering all he could really see were the… trees…

' _Oh.'_

The rather huge trees. Giant. Bigger than any he had ever seen in his life. Like, if one was actually able to be taken down with a normal axe, hatchet, or tree saw, it'd probably be called a good year's work. Each must've been about as large around as his room, if not bigger.

No, definitely bigger.

There was a light grunt in the background, however Naruto didn't turn his sights away due to the sheer awe.

Light managed to breach through huge gaping holes in the canopy, creating huge spots of sunshine in high contrast to the rather dark shade of everywhere else under them. The three of them happened to be standing in a very well lit zone of the forest. Maybe an outside portion, given it seemed that this wasn't even that deep in? Looking to his right, things only looked to get darker and grander, further in.

"Ey, kid!" Naruto was shaken out of his thoughts, jerking his head toward the man with wide teary eyes, who had turned toward him. The shinobi was now making his way towards him, hefting the woman on his back. "I don't know what happened, or where we are, but-"

The blond suddenly remembered just what type of situation he was in, beginning to struggle in another attempt to escape his bindings. He had to run; he had to get back to his sister and dad, and Konoha!

"Yo, just calm down!" The man barked, kneeling down to set the unconscious kunoichi on her back. His hand went for his belt before he grabbed a kunai. Seeing the weapon, Naruto now was mentally incapable of doing as the guy had asked. Until the man grabbed him by the neck, and forced him still on his back.

"Look; I'm not gonna hurt you if you don't do anything to make me want or need to hurt you, see…?" he held shook the kunai in front of the blond, who gave him a fearful nod in response.

"Mmph…"

"Good. It's nice to see we've come to an understanding."

Naruto stared down in confusion as the man then started to make short work of the rope holding his legs together.

"Like I said, kid. I don't where we are. It's no place I've ever seen or been to before. It's probably no place you've ever seen or been to before…? I don't want to have to drag you around when she already won't wake up." He pointed to 'Kinuko'. "So get up."

The young boy that task rather difficult, given his hands were still tied behind himself. Yet he managed it anyway, now tempted to make a run for it. Though that line of thinking got squashed instantly, seeing the man was watching him like a hawk, and could probably outrun him easily. He didn't dare

Naruto heard him wince as he picked the woman up once again. "Now, uh… Let's see if we can find the edge of this damn forest. This place is giving me bad vibes. Something's strange here, you can tell just by looking at the sky.. C'mon."

Looking at the sky?

The boy blinked, before he realized what he was talking about. It was day time. Not night; Not early. It actually almost felt late, like afternoon. That couldn't be right…

The man then started walking, to which the blond boy began to hesitantly follow, feeling that same chill. He was right. This place was quite creepy.

* * *

Neither made much noise while they trekked along the forest floor for what could have been hours. Naruto wouldn't have been able to tell the difference in time. The entire time, all he could think of was what his father and sister were doing… Did they even know he was gone yet? What were they doing? Would they be able to find him? He didn't even know where he was…

No, they had to. His dad was the hokage, one of the most powerful people in the elemental nations…

But that thought didn't assure him as much as he thought it would.

His feet were numb, and his legs knees felt ready to give out on him, however the man carrying the kunoichi didn't look to be nearly as tired. Toughing it out, he continued to keep pace. At this point the tape covering his mouth also started to irritate his skin, and all he could do was nudge his face against his shoulder, of which really didn't do much to alleviate the annoying itch.

He could only bear this for about a half hour more, before his first joint gave out. The man in front of him stopped when he heard Naruto hit the ground, the boy letting out a breath of pain. "Hphnn…"

"Fine. We can stop… It's getting late anyway." a sigh escaped Naruto's lungs, as we stared at the man wearily. "Let's camp here." His kidnapper let out a light tsk as he looked around. "There's not much cover anywhere…"

Naruto looked around from his spot sitting on the cold earth. Cover? He narrowed his eyes to his right, tilting his head. "…Mph." he half heartedly vocalized into the tape.

"What?" the man turned his head towards the child, who tilted his head to the right. "What's wrong with you?"

"-Mphh." Naruto pointed his foot at where he was gesturing with his head, since he couldn't use his hands. "Mphr!" he tried, louder.

The shinobi looked, and trekked to Naruto's position so he could get a better view of what the kid was pointing at. There was a small pit just big enough for someone to crouch under beneath some exposed roots.

"Hm. Good eyes." he adjusted the still unconscious woman on his back. Naruto stared at the spot in fatigue, while the man made his way over to it. Closing his dry eyes, the boy took a deep breath. Twisting around, he resigned himself to getting back up on his feet. Whining in pain, Naruto put his foot under his body and stood. Slowly but surely, the boy hobbled over to the spot.

"Mph…" Hopping into the small pit, the blond landed, fell, and turned over onto his back with a tired huff. Just waiting for himself to wake up from this horrible nightmare…

The man, Harunobu, watched him, disinterested. He was personally more concerned about their position. And just what the fuck went wrong with the plan. After a few good hours of stewing on the subjects, he was still at a blank.

How did they end up here? Where was 'here'? Why were Shinkichi and Yasuhiro killed in transition? Did they not have enough chakra between them for 5 people? Impossible. So then what? He didn't know them very well, but that must have sucked. Maybe there was a flaw in the seal, or the summoning on the other end? If that was the case, they could really be… anywhere, right? Because they sure as hell weren't in Konohagakure no Sato, nor were they in the 'Den of Crabs'.

He looked up, past the roots as he sat next to Kinuko facing away from the tree. Thankfully she didn't kick the bucket. She was the only other person in their little group he could stand for more than thirty seconds at a time.

And the kid. Why wasn't he the first to go, if they had run out of chakra? Is that how it even worked?

The young man clutched his head, before looking up into the glimpses of the enclosing night sky. This forest must have been _huge_ , however he really hadn't seen many animals. Maybe a few birds, or lizards. They were all bigger than average, but nothing insane. Still strange. This forest felt like it should be full of life, especially given it's size.

It wasn't. He might be able to look around for hours and only see numbers of living creatures other than him countable on his fingers. Every one of them was pretty quiet too, just staring at them as they walked. Not a single one made much noise at all, which wasn't entirely strange for lizards and stuff like that. But birds?

It was unnerving. All of them. Watching. Waiting…?

Never were you supposed to think yourself entirely safe, as a shinobi. It was drilled in his head. Yeah, this place? It made alarm bells blare in his head.

Harunobu gulped down the enclosing nervousness. Everything was fine, and he was capable. He had to continue with this mindset. No clouded judgement. He was going to get to their employer, with the kid, and roll in money for the remainder of his days. Maybe even bag Kinuko, if he's lucky…

He looked down at said kunoichi, who he could see a lot better than the boy given the lighting conditions of the extremely dark forest. If only she were awake, he'd probably feel less intimidated by this situation.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and put his hands together in a seal he had come to be very familiar with. His chakra pulsed, flaring through the trees, yet he came up with no big return 'ping', other than from the two next to him. A good thing. That meant there wasn't anything around them in the general vicinity.

Leaning back, he slid forward until he was laying down next to Kuniko. It was time for his brain to turn off; he needed sleep…

* * *

"Ey. Wake up!" a female voice called.

That was the first thing Naruto heard, though it wasn't directed towards himself. His eyes opened, revealing the dull blue orbs looking up at the still very dark sky. Early morning? He didn't know. Looked like it.

"Harunobu, WAKE UP!" Kuniko shouted, and Naruto watched the woman kneel down and give the other shinobi a hard whack.

"Ow! Owww! What!? What is it-!?" he started, before his voice died off, as he looked around. Finally his eyes settled on her. "Oh."

"…'Oh'…" she responded, slowly, before she burst, her face twitching. "WHAT IS 'OH' SUPPOSED TO MEAN!? WHERE ARE WE?! WHERE ARE THE OAF AND… uh…" she rubbed her temple in confusion.

Harunobu raised an eyebrow. "Yasuhiro?"

"Yeah, him!" Kuniko fired back. "But more importantly, WHERE ARE WE?!"

"…Well, see, that's a funny story."

Naruto made his presence known inadvertently when he mumbled into the tape over his mouth. "Mpph… Mphh…" he rubbed his bare foot into the ground, fidgeting. He just felt it but had to _go_ , bad.

"Shut up kid," the woman shot him a glare. "Continue?"

"I don't exactly… know." one could see the confusion alight again on the kunoichi's face when he said that.

"You… don't know-?"

"Ph-Mppph!" The blond cut her off, squirming as he tried to stand. "Mm-Mphh! Ph-Mphhhh!" he got a leg under himself, a technique he felt himself quickly coming to master, before shooting up. "Mpph!"

"For fucks sake, what?!" she turned on him. "What's wrong with you?!"

"Ph-mhhphr!" Naruto stomped, becoming slightly defiant.

Harunobu shook his head, taking a step forward. In one swift motion he leaned down and ripped the tape off of the blond's mouth. Naruto inhaled sharply in pain. "Ahhk! Owww…!" he cried out, rubbing his mouth against his orange shirt.

"Now you can say it; what?" the male shinobi asked, scratching his head.

Naruto tensed. "I… I have to _go_ … Y-you know…" his toes dug into the dirt, as he whispered. "I need my h-hands…" the boy's eyes flickered away. "To…"

Harunobu let out an annoyed sigh, while Kuniko looked at the boy with a deadpanned expression. "Yeah, ok, fine. Whatever. Just come back, or we're gonna have to be forced to find you. Get me?" he gestured his finger across his neck in a universally known gesture.

The blond carefully nodded. "...O-ok."

Whipping out his kunai, the man cut through his bindings, before waving him off, turning back to proceed with informing his kunoichi partner with what he knew. "Just go."

Naruto turned away from them rubbing his wrists and peeked back as he shakily climbed out of the rut. He couldn't see very well, however he began to walk away from them quickly. He heard some raised voices in the background behind him from the two, yet he just kept on for a little under 40 seconds, looking back every now and then, contemplating on making a full dash for it. Neither seemed to check up on him, so he took the liberty of going that much further.

Really, shinobi were fast, but would they be able to find him if he hid really well? He didn't know if he want to take that risk…

Looking around, he turned to a tree, before starting his business. As fast as he could manage, he finished up. It only took a few seconds. Scanning the area again, he had a decision to make. He still didn't see one or the other in the direction he came from, but shinobi were sneakier than that. Naruto made sure to look every direction, narrowing his eyes on every shadowy crevice he could spot to make sure it was all clear.

Wait. No, they wouldn't be on the ground if they were spying on him, would they? The blond blinked and turned his eyes upwards into the heights of the trees. And then he promptly froze, for very good reason. In the darkness he could just barely make out a figure…

Above him, on a large offshoot of the tree he was closest to was possibly the biggest animal he had ever seen, bar one of his godfather's toads. His breath caught in his throat.

' _A… lizard…?'_ It was like no other lizard he had seen before. For one, it was as big as a single wide street. Big enough to swallow him whole. Naruto slowly backed around the tree in trembling fear, an attempt to stay hidden from it.

That's about the time when he saw another. And another. And _another_. More than that; a whole _gathering_. All amongst the branches of the enormous trees. How hadn't he noticed this before, did they just blend in that well?

He began lightly breathing in and out again in his need for oxygen, hoping that the beasts were unable to hear them. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he thought about that possibility. Thankfully, they didn't. In fact, they didn't even look to be moving.

Were they asleep? Not one of them had moves a single limb or head, however he could tell they were all alive by their breathing. It was very noticeable, given their size. Maybe they were like crocodiles, when they were on land?

He really hoped for the first option. If they were sleeping, maybe they wouldn't notice him escaping. They hadn't noticed him up to this point, had they? Taking a chance, Naruto began backpedalling away while watching closely for any movement to denote them having seen or heard him. None.

No chances were taken though. Once he thought he was far enough away, Naruto turned and broke into a dash back for the pit.

One of the lizard's heads twitched, before it let out a low hiss. It's family took up it's call and soon the predators were hissing in chorus. Strangely it sounded like talking… and Naruto was none the wiser.

* * *

He was hyperventilating as he ran into the pit. "Lizards. Lizards… Lizards…!" he repeated over and over. "Really really big lizards!"

"Uh…?" Harunobu and Kuniko stared at him as if he were crazy. "Blondie, what the hell are you talking about?" the female questioned him. "Lizards?"

Naruto pointed in the direction he came from. "LIZARDS! BIG. LIZARDS." his hand shook as he wiped sweat off of his forehead. "Huge! We have to… go!"

Harunobu narrowed his eyes, and stepped out of the pit to look out. He stepped back in a moment later, unamused. "I don't see anything. Nice imagination, kid." he rolled his eyes. "But you're right, we should probably go."

' _Imagination?!'_ The blond tightened his hand into a fist. "No, they're real! I'm not kidding! They were all over the trees! Everywhere! A whole group of them!"

Kuniko nodded. "Uh huh. And we're supposed to believe you why?"

" _ **Hisssss…"**_

As soon as she finished asking such, the three heard a small noise, and turned to it. Poking it's head into the root covered pit, a lizard about the size of an adult's arm. Naruto stared at the creature for about three seconds.

"What…? No… No, no no…"

The two shinobi exploded into laughter. "Ha! Kid, you think _that's_ a big lizard?" Kuniko shook her head. "I've seen cats bigger than _that!_ "

Naruto watched in bewilderment as the small lizard craned it's head left and right switching from eye to eye for it to see better.

In his confusion, Naruto found himself further scrutinizing the intruder. The animal was looking towards them but not _at them_. It's slitted pupils gazed around the camp checking every corner.

" _ **Hisssss…"**_

It all clicked in Naruto's mind. He was no genius; however it didn't take a genius to realize that the lizard was not hissing at them. Harunobu massaged his forehead. "I think we need more tape."

" _ **HISSSS…"**_

 _'Is it signaling the other's?'_

The small lizard let out a mighty hiss, it's neck frills unfurling out as it did so, freaking Naruto out. And that was followed by the entire tree shaking multiple times. It was enough to ice over Naruto's blood. Though, he wasn't alone. Both shinobi looked up alongside him, suddenly feeling quite small.

Several lizards all varying in size from 'bed mattress', to 'easily dwarfing merchant carts', were all rapidly descending the tree, and many of the trees around them.

"HOLY SHIIIT-!" Kuniko started as she turned to Harunobu, who was already drawing weapons. Naruto, on the other hand, was already out of the pit, running for his life.

"KID-!" the kunoichi shouted watched him run as she leaped away from the jaws of a lizard. "Ah, fuck it! Run!"

"Damnit!" Harunobu ground his teeth in irritation, he was less than a second behind her. Both nin leaped from the pit to the trunk and ran up to it to the lowest branches available, which were higher than most buildings. The majority of the scaled hell spawn were nipping at their heels the entire way, as they gave chase to their slightly larger and more 'fun' prey.

* * *

Naruto was _terrified_. _Scared_. Without a doubt, _fearful beyond comprehension_.

He was going to be eaten. He was going to die.

All he knew how to do, all his mind was focused on was sprinting. Tunnel vision. He could hear them behind him, gaining on him. Every step for them, was a breathless distance for him. He dodged around trees, flew over roots, jumped and ran like he had never had to or done before in his life.

Because at this point in time, his ability _was_ his life.

A cacophony of noise filled his ears with every step. His breathing was deafening, his heartbeat frantic, the sound of claws on wood horrifying. It drove his desperation to escape to untold heights with every sound.

" _ **Heheeh! No essscape-!"**_

" _ **Ssstop playing arrooound! Caatch them all be-!"**_

" _ **Get them! Get them! Get theeem~!"**_

Naruto couldn't hear the words clearly. The voices were inhuman in pitch, nearly unrecognizable as speaking actual language. Every syllable grated on his eardrums. Groaning and hissing the words were spat with a desperation and abhorrence he would never forget.

Fear drove tears to his eyes and unable to see, he never noticed the ground stop until he had ran himself over the edge.

"AHHH…!"

* * *

 **End**

 **Bye.**


	3. Big Birds And Big Words

**Impassive Purple: Hello all. Much shorter chapter here, because there really wasn't much more to show without jumping around in time like crazy. Personally, I find that sort of annoying to read, so I won't make you guys suffer through it.**

 **xxTerror33xx: I'm pretty damn proud of myself. I wrote a decent bit of this chapter. And only said "fuck it" like 15 times instead of the usual 45. I am sorry that it is short but the next chapter will be longer and with more plot. Yay. Plus I had so many ideas hit me tonight for both Yuuka and Naruto. You guys are going to** _ **love**_ **it, I promise. Enjoy.**

 **Impassive Purple: Yup, yup. Well, hopefully. We haven't written it at this point, but we'll all see. ANYHOW, here ya go.**

* * *

Falling.

In the four seconds it was happening, Naruto could say he well and truly hated the feeling, upon reflection. However, he had two choices; two methods of death. By rejecting the other, he chose this one by default.

He didn't know exactly what mystical force decided he should survive this experience though, but it did. So he could say he was pretty thankful.

Yet, he couldn't quite say he was thankful about the method this was achieved with. The stench of death, of the giant half eaten animal he was now embedded in. It wasn't the only blood he had been soaked in throughout the last 10 hours or so. He could definitely say it was the worst though.

The blond wanted to puke… and he sort of did, after struggling to claw his way out of the innards of the rotting animal, hitting the ground with a painful thud and guttural coughs. None of that mattered as he tried to reintroduce the nothingness in his stomach to the world.

All of this right in front of a _massive_ bird.

The thing that was far bigger than all of the lizards he had seen combined, staring at him curiously while it held onto one of the dead creature's legs in it's beak. For scale, the leg – which was at least eight times Naruto's size stacked vertically – was a bit smaller than what could be considered 'toothbrush sized' to the feathered animal.

The fact that something that big was watching him, while the blood dripped from it's beak, was sufficient in giving his heart a hard time pumping it's own blood. In fact, he wouldn't have been surprised if someone had told him it had skipped beats.

How he had survived such an internal crisis was another story.

Naruto almost didn't even notice that it was actually a living breathing animal, and a part of him was under the impression that he was just seeing things when it's head slowly turned to the size, alternatively turning off the sun above him.

At this point, he didn't care about the toxic smell, or the squishy feeling of decayed flesh and blood covering his body.

" **Who… are you, little one?"** the bird spoke through it's, the voice decidedly feminine. And oddly bored. Either way, Naruto flinched in fear. **"-…Hello…?"** the bird swallowed the leg, and leaned in.

The blond was rather unresponsive, inching back until he ran into the dead creature behind him. She looked at him for a solid ten seconds, before speaking again.

"… **If you are not going to speak, could you move away from my food?"** she bluntly asked. **"Please, and thank you…?"**

Still nothing from the boy, causing the bird to sigh, and lean closer. **"You haven't died, have you?"** The joking line was delivered so monotone that one could actually take it as legitimately serious. Moving in, the bird nudged the boy to the left, as light as she was capable of doing so. **"...Oiii. Little human…"**

Naruto was broken from his trembling trance, as he was pushed over. He hit the ground with his elbow, then shot up, looking ready to run for his life.

"… **Just move. If you get eaten, or crushed by a bone or something, not my fault…"** with that, she opened her beak and clamped down on another leg, ripping it off. Naruto hurriedly moved out of the way, watching in silent horrid fascination as she feasted on her meal at a steady, peaceful pace.

For several moments, that was all he did. Until the bird flickered her eyes over to him. She paused in her eating. **"…What?"**

Naruto's muscles relaxed as he opened his mouth, but then suddenly closed it. He was unsure if he should actually speak back. Unlike the lizards, this bird didn't look in a hurry to tear him into little pieces.

"…W-what are y-you?" was the first thing that came out of his mouth, and he wasn't entirely sure why. Sure, it was on his mind, because he didn't know what sort of bird she was, but that certainly wasn't the most important question here. "W-why aren't you trying t-to-"

" **Eat you?"** she finished. **"…Well, primarily because you happen to look like quite a bony one. I'm not sure it's even worth the calories spent to swallow you. Also, I've never seen such a young looking human before."** she looked up into the sky in thought for a second, before lowering her gaze back down. **"…And, I'm what is dubbed a Vulture."** _ **(1)**_

A vulture. He knew that was some sort of 'scavenger' bird. The first part reassured him the slightest amount though. The blond felt another question cross his mind. What was a calorie? Why was it wasted to eat him? "Huh?"

"… **What?"** she asked.

"What's… a c-calorie?" he hesitantly asked, seeing as she was willing to answer his questions.

The bird stared at him. **"Uh… A thing that you get by eating that you burn to move… I think."** she didn't sound entirely sure. **"…Time for my own question, why did you fall in my food?"**

Naruto's head jerked up towards the cliff edge, only to find no trace of his pursuers. He calmed down a fair bit, even though he was still being watched by a beast that looked just as capable of killing him. The boy breathed sweet relief, before turning back to the vulture.

"U-um… Gomenasai." Naruto apologized politely. He didn't see a reason not to be. After all, she hadn't once made a hostile movement towards him. "I was being chased by s-some really big l-lizards up in the forest after being kidnapped… And I'm sorry for getting in your… food…" he grimaced. The winged beast still had blood dripping from her beak.

"… **Oh."** she tilted her head again, her voice becoming just a tad more towards comforting. **"…My condolences. That's pretty awful. I'm surprised you got away from Boujou's group. They're vicious to forest intruders…"**

Condolences. Another word he didn't know, but with how she said it, it sounded like an apology of her own.

"Hey… bird-chan," The blond started awkwardly, however stopped before any other words could escape his mouth. "I m-mean, Vulture-…sama?" Naruto rephrased, waving his hands in front of him, hoping that she didn't somehow take offense to the first name, having nothing to call the gigantic avian.

The winged beast's eyes somewhat flared in delight at the affectionate suffix and hastily went to correct him. **"…No, no. It's fine. While I do prefer to be called by my flock name… I do not think you can quite… say it."**

She had a flock? Were they all as big as her? Naruto's eyes widened at the thought. "Uh… What's a flock name? How do you say yours?" Naruto's head tilted in childlike innocence and curiosity, the vulture felt herself softened by the sight. "If you like to be called that… I can try to…"

Despite her bloody visage, the vulture gave Naruto the feathered equivalent of a indulgent shrug, and let loose the loudest sound Naruto had ever heard. Nothing compared to the rising screech the summon released, not even the collapse of the reverse summon had been this loud. Suddenly the noise grew in volume until it almost seemed to cease being a noise and transform into a rumbling Naruto could only feel. It ceased entirely just as quickly as it started.

"…Oh." Naruto blinked, before trying to figure out the best way to go about making such a noise. Nodding to himself slowly, he took in a deep breath, and then began trying to mimic said sound.

His attempt was equal parts endearing as it was very horribly incorrect. The brown and black feathered bird was quick to stop him before he could really commit to it, intervening with her words.

"…' **Bird-chan' is perfectly fine, I do not mind."** she stated. A very indirect way of saying 'you can stop now'. Despite her intent though, she was still amused. The scavenger moved onto another question. **"…I would like to ask… How exactly did you arrive in the summon world, little one?"**

Summon world? Naruto squinted at her for a second, as light dizzy feeling suddenly struck him, yet he shook it off. He pointed to himself with his thumb. "You can stop calling me that; my name is Uzumaki Naruto, -ttebayo." the boy proudly said, full of confidence he lacked when saying much else. "But, I don't really know why I'm here. I don't think the kidnappers were trying to bring me here…" Flashes of a smokey dead man and echoes of the noise flashed through his head and caused him to shiver briefly.

" **A failed reverse summon…"** There was really no ifs about the cause in her mind; she had heard stories of things like this happening before her time, which in the scale wasn't actually that long… not recently though. Instantly, she grew far more interested in the boy. **"So, I'm guessing these kidnappers got run off or killed by Boujou's group?"**

Naruto nodded. "I think so… I didn't wait to see-" Another dose of nausea hit him, his pupils dilating as his legs grew weak. The world spun around him. Black spots enveloped his vision, as a fire was lit in his veins. _'…What…?'_

His heart.

 _ **Budum, Budum, Budum…**_

 _ **Budum-Budum-Budum-!**_

 _ **Buduum… Bu-**_

The blond never felt himself hit the ground, nor the blood leaking from his body as he lay, unmoving.

"… **Ah? Oi…?!"**

* * *

 **[Konohagakure no Sato, Namikaze/Uzumaki Household, 11:00 PM]**

Dinner was silent, the atmosphere in their dining room tense. Filled with sadness and confusion. Yuuka picked at her food; cheap take-out, fried noodles. She almost didn't leave her room when her dad had begged her to come out and eat. The tear tracks could still be seen on her small face.

Minato was barely any better. After a whole day of searching, sending out trackers and other such groups. None of which had found anything at all. _'Yet,'_ he silently hoped. The man stared down at the simple wooden table for a long time, contemplating the whereabouts of his son, and the future.

' _How? How did they escape with him?'_ Minato was nearly glaring holes in his table, his anger had no outlets and he couldn't help feeling more and more useless with every passing second. Who had taken his son? Where had they taken him?

What village, or organization, or person… would want to take his son…?

The man grit his teeth. No, who was he kidding? Who wouldn't? Iwa, kumo, the masked man? He hadn't made many friends in the last several years.

Iwa was always howling at fire country since he had slaughtered their front during the third war, Kumo was bloodline thirsty at the best of times and having Minato's own blood on their payroll would finally give them the means to sneak out of villages with any bloodline of their choice. He shivered at the thought. Kumo with his _Hirashin_ was a nightmare he would never allow to exist…

Then there was the masked man. The sole person in the elemental nation that had Minato's hate. He wanted the Kyuubi and had already taken one member of Minato's family. He had been strong enough to escape after taking a rasengan in the back… Plus he had that teleportation jutsu, but Minato had upgraded Konoha's seals to prevent such untethered space bending methods of teleportation, specifically for that purpose.

Frustration washed through his body bringing fresh waves of self-hate and emotional agony with it. Tears caused his crimson-filled vision to unfocus and almost caused him miss his distraught daughter's question.

"Daddy…" Yuuka looked up at him with puffy red eyes. "Will Nii-chan be okay?"

The question hit him like a spear to the chest. His daughter hadn't asked if they would find him. His hand clenched around his chopsticks. "…Naruto is going to be safe and sound with us." He did his best to sound convincing but the words sounded as hollow as he felt.

Yuuka did her best to give him a smile, however it did not reach her eyes. Minato almost flinched at the sight. She looked so heart-broken like Kushina had on her deathbed when she realized she wouldn't be able to see her children grow up.

That had been the same place he had promised to protect their family. Failures seemed to run rampant tonight…

The crack of his chopsticks rung through the house. Minato inhaled deeply, and suddenly pushed his chair out. Something clicked in his mind as he stood.

What was he doing?

It was only a second more until that click turned into a full on snap.

WHAT WAS HE DOING?

A flare of confidence caused his voice to strengthen dramatically. His head jerked up.

"Yuuka." he looked directly into the eyes of his young daughter, voice firm. He left all doubts behind him as he spoke. "We _are_ going to find Naruto, hear me?"

Her face was pensive before transforming before his eyes. The smile was achingly familiar. All three of his most precious ones were able to smile like that. "Of course we are Daddy." Her eyes shined with belief, twin amethyst but a million times more precious.

He had never been prouder.

Now the only question on his mind was; what to do from here?

* * *

 **[Unknown Location, A Day After Naruto's Kidnapping]**

" **Where are** _ **-**_ **"** _ **Crack**_ **"-they?"** The sound of bones breaking interrupted the grating voice. It was heavy and solemn, the words given with a finality not uncommon for funeral messages. Smacking lips followed by the sounds of loud swallowing echoed in the empty night before a different voice answered.

"They probably failed." The voice was muffled, but enough was heard to tell that it was the polar opposite of his counterpart. High pitched, bubbly chuckling gave his whimsical tone an irritating edge almost as if the 'man' didn't care about anything in the world or their plans.

A figure stood in a desolate field beneath the waxing crescent moon. The only sounds were of the figure's messy eating and the occasional mutter as he seemed to talk to himself. Oddly the animals had fled the area near him. Hunched over his 'food', the figure seemed normal but upon closer inspection he was anything but.

A Venus-like structure pierced his upper half and surrounded it's grass-colored hair topped head. Inhuman yellow eyes peered up at the moon never straying even as it ripped chunks out of a severed arm with sharp teeth. The figure was vertically split by stark colors of black and white. Strangely the two voice came from either side.

Both voices spoke, "What **do** you **think** , mother/ **mom**?" In between bites the figures head tilted as if listening for a far off voice and nodded along to the apparent answer.

"Should we tell Tobi, I wonder?" The white half's voice was mocking and tittered with amusement. "…Orrrr maybe Pain instead~?"

" **No."** The black half snarled in response. **"Not a word gets back to him about this. Even less to Pain. I am no mood for lectures and empty promises. We've been patient long enough. We need to free mom."** The black half's words were filled with righteous anger and zealot devotion.

"Aw." the white half let out a disappointed groan. "Ok then~" A long pause filled with silence ensued. "…Hmmmmm…" The white side hummed while the black retreated into deep thought for a moment.

"… **Let's get out of here."** The black half finally commanded while they stood up. The arm was swallowed whole as the figure sunk into the ground as if it was pure water instead of hard packed earth. The 'appendages' closed around the head as they whispered they're last words to empty air. "Bye- **bye, mother"**

* * *

 **End**


	4. Baby Steps

**Impassive Purple: Hallo. Chapter 4 done! Maaaybe would have been done sooner if Terror didn't have a life, and I was actually motivated/not lazy as hell. Woo.**

 **But it's done now. So enjoy.**

* * *

 **[Konohagakure no Sato]**

"Focus, Yuuka…" Minato softly said, in order to prevent breaking his daughter's concentration. "Like I said, don't force it…"

Said girl took another small breath. It had been nearly a week since her father started her 'actual' training. More than exercise, and more than basic agility training. She was now working with chakra. Or rather, trying to. It wasn't exactly an easy going process for the four year old sitting cross legged in the grass, biting her lip, on the verge of breaking down.

She was determined though. She _would_ find and get her brother back from whoever took him. Nothing could stop her; she had already dedicated herself to it. A promise. One she wouldn't break!

Her fingers were starting to hurt from being in the same hand-seal for so long, yet she didn't let it get to her. Simply ignoring it, and drawing out her chakra slowly but surely. Her dad had said unlocking her own chakra would be much harder than other kids'. That was more than true. She wanted to ask him why, however she figured her time was better spent unlocking it as soon as possible. That could wait.

Was it fair? Not at all. She would bear with it though.

The hardest part was the ache in her chest, the dull scrape of pain every time she thought of her brother. She faltered in her concentration whenever her thoughts strayed to the reason she was doing this. The empty sensation of her brother _not being here_ would force her to slip and start over.

Small tears of frustration were welling up in her eyes but her breathing never changed. Thought after thought of her brother assaulted her like physical blows. Their first time getting ramen. The first time they cried for a mother neither of them ever knew. The first time they tagged their dad playing ninja. So many, yet far too few.

How she had remembered all of this was not a question that came to mind. Each thought she had to bat away just as quickly as they came to her, lest they break her concentration. Yet they were already doing so.

"Carefully reach deep within…"

She was reaching! He kept saying that, but she was! That wasn't the problem.

"Feel for the energy…"

She felt it, but it was so… overwhelming! She couldn't possibly wrap her mind around it! It was too much! The endless chill of it was sending shivers through her spine.

"Now… grab it."

' _How!?'_ she cried internally, the wetness on her cheeks kept increasing. The mass of chakra she was feeling was so huge that one, let alone her, couldn't even hope to do as her father had said and 'grab it'. She couldn't even touch it. Unthinkable. And in her mind's eye, it was nearly an ocean!

She couldn't grab an ocean!

Outside her mind, Minato lowly sighed. He should have expected these sorts of problems. To be honest, he didn't even know how to work around such a thing. His daughter had a damn gigantic chakra monster residing inside her. There wasn't exactly a manual for this sort of thing.

'Unlock your half-Bijuu-containing four year old's chakra, in three easy steps!'

Nope.

It was natural that it would take a while, but he could feel the distress emanating off of Yuuka in waves. And despite how much he wished "Calm down" worked as a phrase, it sadly didn't. Most of the time, it seemed to do the opposite. He knew he was probably giving her advice that wasn't going to work for her, but he didn't know how else to explain what to do, about how she needed to make the chakra hers.

The tears rolling out of her eyes made him want to shake her out of it. Maybe tell her that they could continue tomorrow… Yet, as he had found out, it wouldn't solve anything. She would have the same trouble the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that. It wasn't going to get easier by waiting.

So somehow, she needed to find out how to do it herself.

The theory was, 'it's there, so _take_ it'. By all means, that was indeed true. In practice, though, it wasn't nearly that simple. You had to gain–no, _demand_ the appropriate mindset, the proper command over your body.

"…Absorb the chakra. Take it in. Pull it close." he softly continued. "Connect with it. It's your own chakra. Don't think you can't."

Yuuka released a heavy breath, drifting away from her focus, and forced the tears to cease. She blew away the strands of hair lying on her face with a huff. _'…I can do this…'_ At the words of her father, she then slowly dove back in, once again feeling for her chakra.

The chill of the vast mass amount of energy weighed on her. For many moments, she stood there, in the empty space of her head. It pressed against her, but danced like a fire, with the exception that there was a distinct lack of heat. It was filled with thoughts, words, sounds, pictures. Memories and dreams, and imaginary sensations…

"Can you feel it?"

'… _Yeah…'_ Her voice echoed through the void. Oddly enough, the feeling of it all always repulsed her. It gave her the type of small headache she got when she was forced to do a math problem. Why?

"If you can't grab it, just touch it." her fathers were slightly distorted.

For what felt like the hundredth time in four days, Yuuka kneeled down and reluctantly stretched her hand out toward the reflective waters below her. However it was all just out of reach. Like every inch her hand moved, the chakra moved just as far away. The senses that flooded her mind were beginning to make her dizzy. Why couldn't she touch it?

"Let it flow…" Minato was now close to being drowned out by everything else. "- –" The words were empty.

Too far ahead. Yuuka squinted at the mirror like energy. She reached further.

And further.

And further.

'… _Come on…!'_ It was like it didn't want to touch her. It made her want to pull her hair out, and the bombardment on her senses didn't help. When she realized that no amount of reaching would help, Yuuka snapped, and her reaching stopped. _'Just stop moving!'_

She needed this chakra! There wasn't any other way about it!

Releasing her heaviest breath of frustration yet, she yanked her hand away from the water-like substance–which rapidly returned to it's normal position–and rolled onto her back. She wanted to yell out into her mind in anger, yet she refrained from doing so, knowing it would only cause her a _real_ headache.

For several minutes, the girl did nothing but that. Glaring into empty space. The chakra ebbed and flowed around her, the movement of it all slowly dying down until it was a calm, still sea. The noises and such also faded to silence, allowing her to hear the world outside her mindscape. The birds, the light winds, bugs…

Yuuka turned her head and looked down at the liquid-like energy. She felt like it were almost mocking her. The chakra began to stir once again as her emotions turned to anger, and she began to sit up. However the girl stopped, and narrowed her eyes when she caught notice of this phenomena.

' _Huh?'_

* * *

 **[Summoning World, 'Same Time']**

Naruto was swimming in and out of consciousness. Existing hurt. It felt like he was almost being eaten alive by some strange force. Feeding on him. The painful tingles refused to calm, even as he curled into the fetal position in an attempt to escape it. He couldn't talk, he could barely breath, his heart was having trouble beating.

His eyes were blinking in and out of darkness. His ears refused to pick up sounds. Everything ached.

The gigantic wing that shielded him from the now rising sun–although it wasn't exactly that intense, given the light cover of mist over extremely wide gap in the land–picked up slightly, revealing a single eye of the enormous bird that was covering him. _Bird-chan_ watched with a careful gaze, having been fully surprised at the boy's resilience thus far.

If she were being honest, the moment the nature chakra started to really feed on him, she thought he wasn't long for the world.

But his body resisted. Waves of vermilion, cerulean, and clashing colors thinly veiled him, keeping him as stable as possible in his condition. She couldn't tell where the other chakra was coming from, however it was helping him greatly in his fight to stay alive, doing most of the heavy lifting on limiting the nature chakra which was rapidly being attracted to his weakness.

Nature chakra could be deadly in high amounts. This particular area would eat a human alive due to it's… _special circumstances._ Usually only very specific creatures could freely enter and leave the valley. She and her species, obviously, being one of the few exceptions. The others… well they were better not talked about during this current dilemma.

After the first night, she expected to see a corpse.

After the second night, she expected his soul to have left his body.

After the third night, she nearly prayed to see a dead human child when she lifted her wing.

None of these things happened, and she was watching with awe and horror at his survival and adaptation at each passing day. Simply astounding and disturbing.

She was no stranger to death being a scavenger. Her main food were dead and, sometimes, dying animals. But she had never been given the unique agony of watching something dyingover and over. It hurt her soul.

Even if she had seen it before, it was a hint disturbing to have seen this young human's muscles and skin blackening, and peeling by the heat of his blood. Liquids in his body had escaped from every possible outlet, sweat, tears, saliva… At the same time though, it was all being rebuilt, and she could tell the process was close to being done or his chakra being exhausted. Whichever came first.

The fact that he hadn't eaten or drank anything in nearly a week worried her. No nutrition would leave his body in a state of near-death alone. She would definitely need to find a place to hide him, so she could find something for him to eat.

Looking around, she saw nothing, so she carefully dropped her wing and laid her head back down to get more shut-eye. Nothing would dare attack her even if there were any others around, and she required a lot of rest…

* * *

Naruto's eyes came into slight focus for the first time in days, and all he could really think about was food, because his stomach felt as if it were already in the process of eating itself. He didn't know quite where he was, but in the back of his mind where there was still a semblance of logical thought, the giant black wing overhead led him to deduce that he was still with _Bird-chan_.

Crawling like a half dead zombie, he poked his head out from under the huge feathers into the world, his eyes glassed over as he looked around in the growing sunlight. The pain racked his body with each movement. His skin was just now in the process of healing, and every single one of his bones groaned with each movement.

He finally escaped the expanse of the wing after a moment, before struggling to stand up. His shaky legs nearly gave out on him and it was downright excruciating. Labored pants escaped his mouth, as he began to move. To find food… water… _anything._

He needed it; he would die without. The nagging in the back of his mind, the curling of his stomach…

His mouth was so dry… it tasted like blood and sand. Naruto took about three more steps, before he collapsed next to the giant bird's head without a single groan to be had. His throat hurt too much for that. The thump he made when he hit the ground, however, was heard by the beast next to him.

 _Bird-chan_ 's eyes snapped open, and locked on him. Wonder and disbelief filled her gaze. **"…Child? Are you…?"** _'He can move in that condition?'_ She lifted her head, using her previously tucked in feet to stand to her full height, which shaded the poor human boy from the bright sun.

Naruto's body twitched, as his head rolled over, a hoarse whisper attempting to flow from his mouth. It didn't even sound like words. His eyes were still glazing over as he lifted his hand, and patted his throat with quick fidgety movements. She got the picture. Just as she suspected.

Her head swiveled around, searching for a place that he could take cover from nature, while she found him another animal to feed on. She was quite incapable of moving him herself, given her size in comparison to his. If she tried to pick him up with her beak, it would be easy to not even notice that she had divided him into two bloody pieces without trying. The thought of trying to pick him up by his weak human clothing was laughable; if she could even be precise enough to grab it.

They had been sitting in the same spot for days for this very reason, her having lasted the whole duration of his incapacitation on the meat of the dead wildebeest she had picked clean…

An idea sprung up in her mind. _Bird-chan_ stared at Naruto for a few seconds, before deciding to follow through with the proposed solution. _'Well… He'll bear through it.'_

Suddenly, she started rapidly convulsing her core muscles. It gained speed. A groove was found, and sounds of gagging erupted from her throat as she leaned down to point her beak in front of the human child. Eventually, a sizable amount of mushy substance was pushed out of said beak, with a fair bit of trial and error.

Undigested wildebeest meat hit the ground with a fairly loud plop. The covering digestive liquid splattered all over the dirt of the sheer valley, some of the foul smelling substance even drenching his already bloody clothes and skin. Naruto didn't even give the smell a thought, however he did stare at the disgusting looking 'food' for several seconds, recognizing it for what it was meant to be. The only part of him that wasn't screaming "Eat it. Eat it." was wondering if just dying might be the better option.

That was a very small portion, and the question was beat out rather quickly by his nagging hunger.

" **Hmph…"** _Bird-chan_ looked quite satisfied when the human boy reached out, and began crawling ever so slowly towards the mass. Every movement appeared as if it pained him to the extreme, yet she could do nothing but watch. The worry was still evident in her eyes though.

There was just something about this boy that made her want to protect him, to make sure he went unharmed. He was so young. That bittersweet motherly instinct she never had the chance to use…

Naruto, on the other hand, was in a trance as he bit into the glob of semi-processed meat; going on to rip and shove pieces of it down his own throat, the meat sliding down easily due to it's pre-eaten and vile-moisture drenched state. Raw and bloody; warm and horribly sickening.

The blond actually didn't give a single fuck. It was food. It was almost euphoric, satisfying him more than any other thing he had remembered eating in his entire short life. _Bird-chan_ meanwhile watched in interest as he devoured her previous meal without a complaint, or hint of revulsion. It was a… unique sight to see.

Sluggish in his endeavor, it took him several minutes to finally sate himself to the point where his body told him he should stop, although it felt like the food was literally burning up inside just as he finished. Rolling over onto his back, the boy stared at the minor chunk he had just taken out of the huge glob of meat. Even though the rest of his body still looked like he had been through a bad accident with miasma, it seemed as if his eyes were now regaining their liveliness.

Clear digestive liquid, and diluted blood dripped down his chin as he started to sit up. His muscles, bones, and joints still screamed at each movement. All of which, he didn't give a thought to. His mind was so numb that it didn't matter.

"… **Child?"** _Bird-chan_ started with concern. He didn't respond. She tilted her head, before slowly saying his given name. **"…Naru-to…?"** The blond responded to it, and wordlessly looked up at her, expression dull.

The black vulture paused, observing him, before coming to a conclusion. **"…You… still need water."** She made what was passed for a frown. While his solids had been covered, he probably didn't have nearly enough water to be healthy.

That was a problem. The nearest fresh source was quite far away. Further than he could possibly travel in his condition at the moment. It was true he looked like he could sit up fine, but she would be surprised if he could walk a dozen steps before collapsing again; just as he had before. She doubted he could hold onto her feathers while she flew, either.

So, it was clear she would need to fetch him the water herself. Her beak could hold more than enough for him.

" **You may need to hide while I bring back water… I would not think you would like being picked up and swallowed just so something could have a taste of human."** She informed him, looking around again, just to make sure they weren't being watched. There had not been too many others passing around this area over the past week, but she was being cautious for his safety. She flickered her eyes off to the side, then looked back down at the boy. **"I should only be several minutes at the longest. I have faith you should be able to move well enough to take cover under that indent…"**

Her head nudged in the direction of said indent. A small crack in the dark, rocky cliff side. The boy could probably crawl there given a few moments time. And he was relatively small; unless something was purposely keeping their vision low and searching, they wouldn't be able to see him there.

" **Go."** _Bird-chan_ stressed as she stretched out her wings, waddling backwards far enough to be able to lift off without blowing him into the ground under hurricane force winds. She brought down her feathered limbs multiple times, and with giant gusts of wind that beat the ground and forced Naruto onto his back, within the blink of an eye the huge female vulture lifted off into the sky.

The blond went with the flow of the air being pushed his way, and simply laid flat to the earth. He didn't even bother to do as she suggested, just watching her as she took off to his right. It was graceful, in a way…

With _Bird-chan_ gone, his darkened blue hues rolled around, gazing passively at his surroundings. His heavy breathing was beginning to slow, and all of his body was becoming numb.

The valley was dark in color, with cliffs and rock faces on each side. Kind of like a ravine. Just a lot wider across. Jagged rocks, and even some bones stuck out of the ground, threatening to impale or maim anything unlucky enough to land on them. It definitely looked like the type of place where something would fall down and die in due to not being able to get out, and the bones proved that much.

He let his eyes drift away from the land, to instead just watch the peaceful looking clouds. It seemed as though he was looking through some sort of darkening film, given the slightly unnatural color, though he didn't put much thought into it.

Still weird.

…This entire place was weird. Giant creatures. The thick air. The huge trees.

Why was he here again?

The longer he laid there, the more his mind went blank of thought. His eyelids threatened to slam shut as he almost gave in to sleep. Something kept him from doing so, however. The heat in his core faded. Then his legs twitched.

Hunger stabbed through him again and he found his hands wrist deep in moist mush almost before he could react. Gulp after gulp of raw meat was swallowed with mindless need. By the time he realized just what he was doing, he had already devoured a handful. It was like his memory lapsed.

Naruto looked down at his hand, then at his stomach. He had been so full; what happened?He sat in silence listening as his stomach made questionable noises. The burning started again.

 _ **Glurk, grumble, guach…**_

The burning didn't last quite as long as last time. Likely because he didn't eat as much. It wasn't long before he felt hungry again, and found himself gnawing down another hand full. The taste was non-existent but he was regaining smell to an extent.

It was absolutely awful. He was sure if his body were sane, he'd be puking his guts out.

His fingers closed around another handful, and brought it up to his mouth. This mouthful _crunched_ as he bit into it and yet he couldn't find himself caring already mid-way to his next one.

The blond was still doing this, even as _Bird-chan_ landed back in the vast, desolate valley. The ground shook as she touched the earth, looking at him as he continued to eat away. The black vulture watched him eat for a few seconds, waiting for him to understand that she was there with the water. Naruto finally looked up at her, dropping the remaining meat from his hand.

' _Water.'_ The thought crossed his mind, and that was the track it was on, and it wasn't changing. His body demanded it's need for the next part of his meal.

 _Bird-chan_ nodded her head, and leaned down, laying her beak on the ground. Naruto understood what she wanted him to do. He put his hand to the ground, and used his leg to push himself up.

Agonizing pain shot through his muscles. Enough to drive his eyes open wide, as it was the first serious amount of pain he felt while regaining coherence. He bit down on his tongue on accident and felt the blood. The red liquid dripped from his mouth as he limped over to _Bird-chan._

She opened her mouth, and tilted her beak forward so he could reach it. Naruto was still quiet as he lifted his arm to wipe his face of the blood and other such substances, before practically dunking his head into the water. He seemed as if he was trying to drown himself in it, drinking it so fast.

The blond had to whip his head up to keep himself from choking on it. Then he went back in. He drank so much that a breath later he stumbled back, and fell to his knees; despite trying to keep it in his mouth with his hands, failing as he spewed most of it all over the ground. His body couldn't take any more.

Naruto brushed his knuckle against the ground, huffing when he stood back up. He ran his tongue over his lips, and rubbed his throat. "P-pour… it… on m-me." he mumbled. The first time speaking in days. It was quiet.

 _Bird-chan_ heard him speak, however she didn't know what he said. She tilted her head, unable to speak.

The boy lifted his hand and pointed at her beak, then at himself. "P-pour the water… on me."

He closed his eyes as she did so, the water spilling over him like a small pool. Only one of them was surprised when it started to lightly steam as it hit him. Everything was so hot. The water made his skin tingle pleasantly. He savoured the feeling.

And only one of them noticed the red chakra coming back over his body, followed by the black nature chakra. Twisting tendrils of decomposition personified tried to meld with the vermilion cloak.

" **Oi…?"** Dark brown eyes superior to humans narrowed in worry as the black substance seemed to push into the young ones body with ease. _'Is the red chakra not going to help him?'_ So focused was she, that she nearly missed the small spark of blue.

A mere ember of sea blue sparked at the black veil before it seemed to wilt and disappear. Then another tried and it too failed. Then two… three… four and so on until the black and red were swallowed in a flashing chaotic storm of pure cerulean. Instinct drove her to step back as a superior creature made itself known. The hopeless boy exploded into a whirlpool of chakra that eclipsed hers several fold. Her eyes widened. _'How does he have this much chakra?'_

Naruto was now unconscious on his feet and yet still his chakra blasted forth battering through the Bijuu's hate and the valley's nature chakra with ease. It anchored him standing and seemed to call forth a challenge to the dark-tinted mist that was forming above. And for a mere moment, just one, the mist seemed to hesitate.

But, nature was not to be denied.

It surged right back drilling into the waves of blue. Wisp after wisp of smoky black worked it's way into human chakra only to suddenly be bombarded by walls of red. A myriad of colors battled around and inside the chakra storm with a boy at its center. Black corrupted, red rebuilt, and blue tried it's hardest to maintain balance amongst the two.

In the space of a few seconds it began, and in the space of a few seconds it stopped.

Naruto's unconscious body dropped like a rock.

* * *

 **End**

 **Thank you for reading. We'd love your opinions on the story so far, whether that be through a review or pm. Anyhow, good day to you all!**


	5. Meeting Under The Influence

**Impassive Purple: Hello all. New chapter here for you, and I must say, it was done in record time. You have anything to say Terr-?**

 **xxTerror33xx: Yuuka and her special Kyuubi power! I never really liked how the Yin and Yang were always introduced as fundamentally different yet seemed to be the same except for color with the Kyuubi. So… I made it different. Do you like Yuuka and her jutsu or not? I'd like to hear your feedback please because I can make adjustments and maybe try to make her a better character. She will be her own thing, she's not just a harem slut for Naruto's pleasure. Plot importance.**

 **Impassive Purple: Woot. And yeah, thanks fanfiction, for making that type of sister character so popular (Sarcasm); anyway, hope you enjoy. ONWARD!**

* * *

A mission.

This was it. This is what she had been waiting for, what she had trained for.

A mission.

Overcoming her unique problem and hours of chakra control training. Kurenai-sensei and Itami-chan had beaten genjutsu lessons into her, and she had exceeded well after conquering said problems.

Now, she had a mission to help find her brother. Finally.

Green shined in the sunlight beneath her chin. Her hand was already reaching up in a familiar motion. Cool, bright jade settled in the palm of her hand. It seemed to swallow her attention, drawing her into it's spiral pattern. Around and around and…

Seven year old Yuuka shook her head quickly sending red hair flaring in every direction. _'Damn seals.'_ She cursed internally.

The aptly named "Jade whirlpool" was, in fact not just pretty jewelry for a small girl. It was her father's and godfather's latest sealing masterpiece.

After her discovery of her strange chakra four years ago, she had spent hours watching it. How it wouldn't be commanded to move, how it was so abstract compared to her father's, how it was just so different from everything her father said it was supposed to be.

She couldn't just force it. She was more of a guiding hand to encourage it to do what she wanted. It reacted to emotions and thoughts. An outsider may have even mistaken it for being sentient, however that wasn't quite the case. She hadn't known it at the time but the sheer amount of yin caused her chakra to be annoyingly unique. It might of even been okay for such an imbalance to occur if it had been _human_ Yin chakra.

When she had finally unlocked her chakra, it had turned into a mess. The Yin chakra was trying to fit in a container much too small. So, in response it made room. _Migraines._ Debilitating headaches that lasted weeks. Excruciating pain every time she tried to think.

Freaking Kyuubi.

The good news was she was much smarter than before. Yin _was_ the mental half of chakra. Well, maybe not smarter, but something changed. She remembered reading before the "Yincident"–as Jiraiya had named the span of time–it had been slow and boring but now everything fell into place. Things clicked whereas before she never made headway. She had nearly given her dad a heart attack when she had first asked him what Jinchuriki meant after she read it from his sealing notes. That had been an emotional day.

But the jade necklace was her best tool. Her father explained it as a 'trigger' or 'catalyst' for the genjutsu that she was learning from Kurenai-sensei. Some kind of interrogation based one from T and I. She could mold chakra and activate the jutsu on her own, for all the good it would do her being so untrained, but the necklace filtered the fox's Yin from her Yang and used it to power the jutsu.

The extra strength caused the genjutsu to be closer to hypnosis. Kyuubi's chakra was an equalizer letting her gather information from unassuming and untrained targets, such as the kage's relatives around her age. Jade style genjutsu, she called it.

Anyhow, it was useful because it wasn't exactly like she could walk in there and hold people at kunai point to get information out of them. That is, if they even had any to give her. Her father told her this could very well be absolutely useless, as the kage probably wouldn't share such critical information with them, or let them overhear it. Too young.

The redhead would just have to hope for the best.

* * *

Yuuka glanced back as she walked down the hall, seeing several shinobi with headbands not of her own villages' following behind her and the other children, guiding them to a room away from where the village leaders were talking. She would have felt a lot more nervous, if there weren't two Konoha ANBU shinobi among them. Kakashi-san and someone other that she couldn't recognize, or possibly didn't know.

Even if they weren't there, and even with the tension thick enough to breathe, no shinobi would dare make a hostile move. Such would almost certainly taken to be a declaration of breaking relative peace. It made her feel that much safer anyhow, as eyes of some of the Iwa and Kumo jounin every now and then would land on her, before quickly pulling away.

They came up to a room, with two samurai guards standing to each side of the door. The shinobi present nodded to them, as a sign of respect, and several of them began reminding the children to be on their _best_ behavior. Yuuka felt a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched before seeing Kakashi's masked face.

"Try to _socialize_ a bit with the others." he told her, and the red haired girl put on a show of shyly nodding. Kakashi patted her on the head and gestured to the now opened door. "Your father has a plan in case things go south, but _nothing should happen_." the young man made sure to put emphasis on the last three words, raising his voice just to make sure everyone else around them heard. No one really seemed to acknowledge that he said anything, but the picture was clear.

Yuuka skipped her eyes over all of them. From what she had heard, it was certainly a rare sight indeed to see shinobi from four of the five major villages not at each other's throats. At least not visibly. Turning away from Kakashi and towards the door, she walked away from the group, with seven others following shortly behind.

The room was furnished with three simple light beige couches, a dull red rug, wooden table, and a few potted plants. There was also a random deck of cards on the table's surface, but she doubted anyone had intentions of touching it.

Quietly, she strategically positioned herself and took a seat on the very middle of the middle couch, still holding her necklace. It was at this time, that she got a minute to truly observe the other kids; some of which choosing to sit, relaxed, and others standing up and looking at everyone cautiously.

The first one she studied, a small maroon haired young boy. The dark rings around his eyes told her he probably didn't get much sleep, and he made steps so silent he might have been mistaken for the dead at first. He made eye contact with no one as he sat on the furthest edge of the couch to her left.

Following close to him where two others, a dark haired, dark eyed kid with weird looking purple makeup, and a slightly older looking blond female with teal eyes and four pony tails in a square configuration. Both were watching the red haired boy closely, which made Yuuka quite curious.

Next, three kids from Iwa–of which she could tell from their dress, the red tops and brown bottoms–came in and sat on the couch to her right, also not very talkative, but didn't look nearly as tense as everyone else in the room. A girl with pink eyes, and black hair was scratching her cheek, putting up an air of casual carelessness. The rather large older boy who towered over all the other kids was quite the same, plopping down next to her.

And finally having himself revealed as soon as the other boy moved from view, a blond haired, pale blue eyed–boy?–who looked in between the two in terms of age sat on her other the other two, he seemed quite annoyed to be there.

Last were… well…

"Omoi, ugh! Could you just stop whispering to yourself!?" a darker skinned, red haired, and golden eyed girl around her own age smacked the white haired dark eyed boy that she was pushing into the room, who looked like a total nervous wreck.

"B-but… Karui! What if- what if they're all j-jounin in disguise ready to k-kill us at any moment!? What if they-!?"

"Shut up!" another smack came across his head as the girl pushed him on the couch next to Yuuka. The kumo native girl narrowed her eyes at the other redhead's positioning. "Hey, princess, mind moving a bit? I'm pretty sure you don't own the whole couch."

"Oh. Uh… Yeah…" The Namikaze girl frowned as she scoot aside to the arm rest, to let the other girl sit next to her friend. She had sort of expected everyone to distance themselves from each other, but that didn't seem to be the case.

The samurai who were guarding the doors, and two more such armed men, then entered the room, closing the door before each making their way to a corner of the room. Yuuka narrowed her eyes just a fraction. This was going to be slightly more complicated than she thought.

See, what this was meant to be was a show of 'trust' between nations. Or what passed for trust, anyway. It was a test. She didn't know exactly what the messages sent between villages said or what the last meetings were about, but she could assume the basis of "Hey, you know what would be a good idea that no one can deny doing without looking suspicious? Let's put all of our kids, or most promising young children in a room together while we talk about mission deals, trade, or whatever!"

It was sure to have been a ton more complicated than that, yet that's what it ended up being. As displayed now.

Yuuka was about to open her mouth to spark conversation in order to break the settling silence, only to be cut off by the other red headed female.

"So. Uh… How are all of you today?" Karui asked, looking around. Yuuka's eye twitched, before another voice spoke up.

"Bored." the blond on the Iwa native's couch answered quickly.

"And… Also, it's too damn cold." the kid with the face paint grumbled next, two which the blonde girl next to him made a nod of agreement. It did happen to be quite chilly at this time of year in the land of iron.

"Oh…" Karui raised an eyebrow, her eyes flickering over to Yuuka, then quickly settling back on the one boy who spoke. "You must be from Suna then."

The konoha native again twitched, her deadpanned frown now clear for everyone to see. She could assume easily enough that everyone in the room knew what hidden village she was from due to that alone. _'Ok then…'_ The girl looked around at each of the other kids. A plan was forming in her mind. The only problem she could see thus far with it, were the samurai watching over them.

Ok, admittedly, that was actually quite a gaping hole in the plan. She would think of a solution later. Time to follow through, and blow expectations out of the water. Get into character, and go.

Yuuka let go of her jade necklace, pointing to Karui, then at Omoi. "I just realized I don't really know anyone's names other than you two. Karui, and… Omelette? I'd like to know the rest of your names, so it would only be fair to the rest of you if you knew mine…!" She jumped up, flashing her pearly white smile, and boisterously jabbed a finger towards herself. "Let me start; I'm Yuuka Namikaze, nice to meet you all!"

' _Omelette?'_ the single word shot through the thoughts of the people residing in the room. Yuuka could see everyone's face–bar the maroon haired boy sitting at the edge of the left couch–turn from "What?" to "Is this girl deaf?". Even the samurai shuffled just a tad.

"I-It's Omoi. N-Not… Omelette." the white haired boy corrected quietly, stuttering.

"Huh?" Yuuka made the single hand-seal required to initiate her genjutsu, running her hand through her hair to disguise it. She then leaned over, letting her necklace hang in plain, shining view while turning to him. "What'd you say Omelette? I can't hear you whisper if you aren't looking at me, ya know!"

"He said _Omoi_ , princess." Karui glared at her. "I'm pretty sure he was loud enough for everyone to hear, do your ears work…?" her voice and eyes trailed off slightly. Yuuka internally smirked. Not the target she was going for, but this would work.

"I mean, she's probably never had to use them before, hm." the blond boy to her right commented. This caused the black haired female next to him to snicker.

The redhead brushed off the statement, and subsequent mocking snicker, continuing to face Karui and Omoi; however the annoyance could not be fully hidden.

"Oh. Nice name, but I'm gonna call you Omelette!" the redheaded Namikaze flashed her smile again. She spun around to the couch seating the three Iwa natives, narrowing her eyes on the blonde boy there, before pointing to the large statured boy. "How about you?"

"Akatsuchi…" He simply lifted his hand in a friendly wave, which honestly did surprise her as their two villages were currently still considered enemies. The again, he didn't seem like that aggressive of a dude. And maybe if his skills were higher than pre-graduate academy level in recognizing genjutsu, he wouldn't have been taken in by the jade necklace, or caught off guard when a small dizzy spell came over him.

"And you?" she pointed to the girl next to him.

The black haired female wasn't quite as fluid with introductions as Akatsuchi was. "Kurotsuchi, but I guess it doesn't matter what you call me. We'll probably never talk again." her voice was unperturbed, but the small smirk on her face annoyed Yuuka to no end.

The redhead played being hurt, and frowned. "Aw. You don't think so Kurotsuchi-chan~?" she skipped to in front of the other girl. The light-pink eyed Iwa native must have been slightly more resistant to the temptation to look into the jade necklace. At least, at the range the redhead was at previously.

Kurotsuchi rolled her eyes. "It's just a… hunch…" when her sights settled on Yuuka; bang. While more stubborn than anyone else thus far, she started falling to it as well.

But with this many people, it was already slipping. _'What a pain…'_ Yuuka had to stick her hand into one of her pockets in order to redo the hand-seal to keep the chakra flow going. She shrugged. "Well, you never know right? Maybe if our villages ever become allies we could be friends!"

Kurotsuchi didn't reply. Yuuka then backed up and sat on the short wooden table like a chair. She now faced the one who cracked the joke. She didn't even need to ask this time.

"…The name's Deidara. And don't wear it out, un?" he arrogantly waved his hand. The girl took no small measure of satisfaction in watching him fall into the trap, though. Too easy, really. He may have been the easiest thus far.

Blinking, Yuuka rotated around the table so that she could face the kids from Suna along with Omoi. "And, you three?" she asked, referring to the sand siblings.

The boy with the brown hair and face paint was almost as equally simple to get, though Yuuka struggled to keep the genjutsu web steady. "Kankuro… Just, Kankuro."

Seeing as keeping her hand in her pocket too long might look suspicious, she temporarily released the seal, feeling as though she had put enough chakra into the process to keep it up; at least until she could find another way to sneakily make the one handed seal.

However, it seemed the last girl would be her biggest challenge yet. Yuuka could easily tell that the blonde sitting next to Kankuro was the most astute of the bunch, and wasn't just rubbing her eye just because she was tired or the like. She was blocking half of her vision on purpose.

Did she notice a change in the other's behavior? She wasn't saying anything if she did. The redhead already had a plan B to avoid detection if there was even a word out of her mouth. While shattering the genjutsu without hesitation would mean immediate failure, she was well aware that there was absolutely no room for error in avoiding suspicion.

As much as that pained her.

"And you are…?" Yuuka stayed in character, questioning the other girl.

The blonde stared at her, still casually holding her fingers over the left side of her vision. "You can call me Temari. Nice to meet you." she stated.

Yuuka read between the lines. _'You're doing something'_ was picked apart from what she said. Not literally, but the redhead could get the gist of what the other girl meant.

"You too!" the Namikaze put up a facade of smiling. Her mind simultaneously went through possible strategies to get the blonde trapped in her genjutsu, which required her to remove the hand from her eye. It seemed impossible no matter how she looked at the situation, to do it without raising a big red flag. Just like Omoi, she would have to come up with a special plan for this one.

Yuuka leaned over to the maroon haired boy. She didn't notice Temari's fist tighten just the barest amount. "And, last but not least, you! What's your name?"

His teal eyes didn't even flicker. They didn't move, and he didn't make any other recognition that he had heard her other than the name the came out of his mouth. "Gaara." his voice was almost lifeless.

Yuuka's now gentle looking smile faulted slightly. _'Oh boy.'_

"So you three are from Suna, right?"she drifted back into her role of 'that girl with short term memory loss, and lack of hearing'. At the same time, she put her hand back in her pocket, pretending to itch her leg as she once more made the hand-seal to keep the genjutsu from breaking.

Temari slowly nodded. "Yes. Usually, people refer to us as the sand siblings."

The redhead blinked, before quinting. Now that she looked at it, they did _kinda_ look related. "Oh. Cool! I bet it's hot all the time in Suna, huh?" Even as she said it, she felt herself losing brain cells. _'No way…! No one would have ever guessed that obvious information…!'_ her internal sarcasm was interrupted when Temari responded without a beat.

"Yes, quite often. But rarely do we do get a rain-shower, and cloud cover isn't too uncommon." the amount of sass in her voice was nearly palpable. Yuuka very much felt like the idiot in this situation, but feelings be damned.

"If you don't mind me asking, why is your brother so… uh… what's the word… distant?"

Both could tell which brother she was talking about. Better yet, that finally evoked a serious response from the blonde. _'Perfect.'_ Now it was time to abuse it for all it was worth.

"Well, he's not very sociable. Kind of a… special case." Temari glanced over to where Gaara was sitting. The boy was practically staring a hole through the floor.

"Ah come on, he can't be that bad!" Yuuka got off the table and knelt in front of him, taking her hand out of her pocket as she did so, and waving her hand in front of his face. "Helloooo? Is anyone home in there?"

Temari tensed up. "I-I wouldn't…"

Gaara looked up into the redhead's eyes. His gaze was blank. The girl gave him a reassuring smile, but quickly noticed that he wasn't falling under the genjutsu, despite the jade necklace being right in his view.

"Uh… Hi." Yuuka held up a hand in a motionless wave. He didn't respond. His eyes looked directly into hers, and she could have sworn they were piercing into her very soul. The girl's mouth formed an 'O' in recognition of what Temari was talking about.

"L-Like I said, he doesn't talk much." the blonde slowly set a hand on Gaara's shoulder. Or tried to. A weak sand barrier prevented her from making contact and Temari's hand shook violently in response. She quickly pulled the hand away.

Omoi and Yuuka's eyes widened. _'What…?'_ A kekkei genkai? Where did the sand come from? The redheaded girl carefully backed away.

The hissing sounds of swords being drawn by the samurai caused the sand to seemingly disappear into thin air. Temari hesitated but eventually moved away from the youngest brother to sit slightly closer to the older, who like the others that had been put under the genjutsu, remained quiet.

Yuuka saw something, though. A flash of emotion. Just a glimpse of hurt in Gaara's eyes as Temari moved away. Enough to make her curious. There were obviously some problems here with whatever that sand was.

Maybe she could use this to her advantage?

She glanced around at the samurai, who still held their blades at half drawn. What would they do if…?

Yuuka gulped down her apprehension, and commit to her plan. "Hey, what's that sand? That's pretty cool, ya know?" she reached toward Gaara, who widened his eyes. As expected the sand streamed into place, blocking her hand.. "Woah!"

She pressed her hand against it, and noticed the samurai getting antsy. All four had their hands on their blades. Yuuka pressed harder, still displaying that show of childlike innocence.

One of the samurai spoke, raising his voice at her. "Miss, please take your hand away from him this instant. We don't know the capability of that sand."

Yeah, and neither did she. _'But judging by Temari's reaction… She's scared of the sand.'_ Yuuka lifted up her hand, only to bring it down to pound against the thin layer of sand, as if she were testing it's durability. Gaara was now inching away from her.

"D-Don't do that." his facade was now breaking. "I-If you-"

"MISS."

Yuuka did it again, only harder. The sand reacted.

Omoi let out gasp of surprise, and the samurai made steps toward them.

The redhead felt a sharp pain in the hand that now pressed against the sand. Her sights dropped to the blood that dripped to the redhead quickly pulled her hand back, as the samurai rushed forward, blades in hand as they stood between the two.

The girl stared at her hand for a moment, gritting her teeth. _'Ah… this hurts more than I thought it might…'_ She had expected a prick, or a cut. Not this whole gash that ran across her palm. Shaking the stinging hand, Yuuka looked up at Gaara.

He looked expectant as if waiting for a response, from his bunched up body and the tightening of his eyes, he expected a bad one.

"Ow. That kinda hurts, ya know?" She let out a weak laugh, baffling everyone in the room. Yuuka looked up at the samurai. "Hey, do you guys have a bandage or something?"

They didn't even notice that she was making another hand-seal with the bloody hand she was holding. Both men in front of her were drawn into the jade stone's gleam.

"-Uh… No, miss…" one of them replied.

Yuuka put up a disappointed expression, and turned to the other two men. "Are you sure? None of you have any bandages at all?" the jade stone was doing it's work again, along with her chakra, which was pouring out of her like a hose. She couldn't even afford to let up the hand seal.

"No, miss… We do not have any bandages." both of their eyes dilated, as if overcome with a wave of dizziness. "We warned you to not proceed, but you did not listen. Please just go back to your seat."

' _Bingo.'_ Yuuka frowned on the outside. "Ah, come on. I was just checking out that cool kekkei genkai he has!" the gears were already turning in her head as she turned to Omoi, her jade necklace grabbing his attention. "Don't you think it's cool too?"

"Miss. Please, go sit down where you were originally. If you do not, we will need to use force."

Yuuka clicked her tongue. "Ok… fine." she got up from the table, and walked over to the couch. Plopping down, she looked over to Temari, before she opened her mouth once more.

It was time. Even if two weren't under her genjutsu, she was going to take the risk. "Does anyone know where my brother is at, by the way?"

Temari and Gaara both stared at her in confusion. _'Brother?'_

Yuuka looked around. "No one knows? I've been looking for him for a while. His name is Naruto?"

No response. Only confusion, from everyone.

The redheaded Namikaze looked between all of them rapidly. "A show of hands?" a slightly depressed desperation leaked into her voice.

No one raised their hands, and tears came to her eyes. _'…Damnit. No…'_

Yuuka dropped the hand-seal, letting her tears fall. She hadn't expected much, but she was hoping for something.

Temari narrowed her eyes, dropping the hand from her eye when she saw everyone blink whatever the red haired girl had done, it was over now. Gaara just looked at the girl in wonder.

"Heh. How do ever expect to be a shinobi, princess, if you cry over a little wound like that?" Karui suddenly said, scoffing.

And then Deidara. "Yeah, pretty pathetic, un."

"She shouldn't have messed with him, and backed off like the guards told her to. Her fault." Kurotsuchi rolled her eyes.

Temari looked around at them all. _'They don't remember the…?'_

No. Of course they don't; because that was, without a doubt, genjutsu.

* * *

 **End**

 **(7) Omoi, (8) Karui. (Samui is one of the Chunin/Jounin with them, at around 19)**

 **(7) Gaara, (8) Kankuro, (9) Temari.**

 **(9) Kurotsuchi, (10) Deidara, (11) Akatsuchi.**

 **(7) Yuuka.**

 **If any of these ages would be off, don't be surprised. We didn't exactly calculate birthdays here. It doesn't actually really matter, though, because they're just in this general age range. Anyhow, hope you enjoyed!**

 **Review if you want, we appreciate reading them. Also, if you see any grammar mistakes, feel free to PM either of us, or whatever.**


	6. Growing Fears

**Both Of Us: WE HERE FAM! WE DEAD BUT WE ALSO NOT!**

 **xxTerror33xx: It is all Purple's fault. He didn't want to write and I had to break my poor fingers to get out to my beloved readers. Not working is it? It was both our faults. I got a job and school started. I'm in class everyday from 8 to 8 so it's hard to write.**

 **Impassive Purple: I was sick as hell. As of writing this, I'm still sick. And being the terrible writer I am, my mind was flopping on everything. Most of the chapter has been done for weeks... except the end. But we did it.**

 **xxTerror33xx: I think I did my best ever writing on this chapter and I expanded on some Naruto-verse things Kishi never did. Enjoy and get ready for some excitement in future chapter. I also included a hint into Naruto's future sage abilities.**

 **Impassive Purple: Woot. Here you go, readers.**

* * *

 _One entire year. Since she had found the small human she had decided to adopt, to train to survive in her world, as he had no other places to go._

 _Well, it was more like he had adopted her. Nonetheless, she had a family for the first time in her life._

"… _I think I have a question about that, Kaakaw-chan." the curious five year old blond said, after a pause. His recently crafted wooden geta-like sandals stopped clacking against the rock of the cliff side of which he sat on top of. The boy held up a small wooden figure he had been carving to the sun, admiring his work as he spoke._

 _The giant bird stared at the child, hearing the nickname she had come to appreciate him saying, from inside the large cavern the two called home._ _ **"About the clans?"**_

" _Kind of. I guess." Naruto gestured with his bone formed knife around the valley, not a soul to be seen in view. Just the lowering sun, rocky formations, dirt, and patches of desert-esque plants. Off in the distance, one could just barely make out the beginnings of a forest, separated from the current terrain by a wide crack in the earth. He frowned, glancing back at his guardian. "Well, if there are so many different clans out there, why aren't you in one? There isn't like a… a bird clan or something?"_

' _ **A bird clan…'**_ _The female vulture hummed an affirmative after a few seconds._ _ **"…Yes, though not under such a name; we didn't name the flock. I was once a part of it. Any chick must have support to survive when they're young. I was no different."**_

" _But, since you're in the… 'dead lands'… does that mean you got exiled or something? Or did you just not like it there?" he asked, his blue eyes glinting in perplexed curiosity. Bird-chan considered her answer for the question; it was the first time he had really asked her such a personal thing other than "Why are you so big?"._

" _ **You could say, both…"**_ _she began._ _ **"I didn't exactly get along with many of them, and many of them especially did not get along with me. I was born and grew up to be quite different from others my age."**_

 _Naruto squinted, looking at her through a forcibly skeptical view. "Huh? What do you mean, how…?"_

" _ **I happen to be much larger than any others of my species. I was powerful, and they found me intimidating; even the strongest leaders of the group did."**_ _the reply was direct. To the point. Her tone was indifferent. It wasn't really a subject she disliked talking about, not that she had ever had to in the past. It didn't phase her; and if they believed her to be a threat to them all, it wasn't exactly effective to reason her disagreement, especially if most others in their commune agreed._

"… _ **They believe it's demeaning. That they owned less respect of others when I was around."**_

 _It wasn't exactly untrue. Even if 'respect' wasn't the word she would use for what they felt. She didn't make mention of it, but this was one of the same reasons she could never find a mate. While peaceful, it had been a very boring and lonely life for her up to this point. The child before her had unexpectedly softened a spot for himself in her emotions after gaining her interest. It was rather strange; out of the blue._

" _Oh." the blond let out, understanding the basics of what she was saying. His frown deepened. "That's all? They just don't like you because you're bigger than them?"_

"… _ **Yes child. In the same way, say, a king wouldn't want one of his citizens to be richer or have more power than himself, right?"**_ _She phrased the theoretical situation in a very simple manner, something he could fully grasp._

" _Yeah… That kinda makes sense…" Naruto shrugged, yet his frown remained. "But… if they didn't like you being more powerful, shouldn't they have been focused on getting more powerful themselves?"_

 _One didn't cut the totem pole in order to get to the top._

"… _ **Maybe. In fact, most likely. However, child, it was a far easier and quicker solution for them to just remove me entirely."**_ _Bird-chan noted, playing advocate._ _ **"Although I don't agree with their methods of solving the problem, I would have probably ended up leaving anyhow. I didn't need them, and they didn't need me."**_

" _Hm." the boy looked back out to the valley, leveling his knife on the wooden figure again, flaking pieces off. He remained quiet for a fair few minutes, while she eyed him with interest. It looked as if he had something else to ask._

 _She was right. He bit the tip of the knife for a second, before he spoke up once again. "Did your dad and m-?"_

 _No wonder he was hesitant. His mind was probably reaching for a concept it couldn't quite grasp hold of._

" _ **Mother died of elderly age. My father was much younger than her, though past my younger helpless years, we did not interact much. He was silent on the matter. I can't tell you if he cared about such a lowly problem or not."**_

"… _Oh." Naruto slowly nodded. He set the incomplete figure on the stone next to him. It just barely resembled a bird… of some sort. He was trying. "Well… um."_

" _ **Yes?"**_

 _He shot her a small smile. "I think you being so big is kinda cool."_

* * *

"… _ **Naruto?"**_ _Bird-chan stared at him from outside their home, on the edge._

 _The blond gave a heavy grunt of questioning, slowly pushing his body up vertically against the wall. "Hn?"_

" _ **What are you doing?"**_ _The shaking of his arms made it look as if they would give out any second._

" _I… Can't…!" he started, gritting his teeth. "Push myself…!" Up the wall. That's what she figured he would have said, had he not suddenly come crashing down, cracking his head on the hard ground. One of his sandals fell off his foot as he landed, the sound echoing through the rocky gap._

 _The vulture eyed him carefully._ _ **"Ah-?"**_

" _Oooow…!" The blond curled, clutching his head. Her sharp vision caught the small amount of blood that was spilled, before the mysterious red chakra bubbled up on the wound, closing it._

" _ **May I ask why you are doing such… exercises?"**_ _To her, they seemed–arguably–useless. Or was there something she wasn't seeing?_

 _Humans did do some weird things. While having next-to-no human contact herself, she had seen it first-hand with the child. How he preferred to alleviate himself in private. Or how he didn't really seem to quite fear anything until his self-preservation was visibly on the line. Or how he liked using one hand over the other; his right._

 _Let it be known that these latter two were things she was actively trying to break him of. The first was strange, but she didn't really think that would be detrimental to his survival._

 _She only got a response to her question after he quit groaning. Even though it healed, it obviously still hurt him considerably. "…Because I felt like it. Training. I can't even do ten of them." the annoyance in his voice was clear. "Secondly, I can't defend myself right now. I don't want to have to rely on you to protect me when something wants to mangle me."_

 _Straightforward enough._

' _ **So that's it…'**_ _It irked him at his lack of competence. However, although she would try to support him in his struggles, did he really expect to take on such creatures by himself? In head to head physical combat?_

 _To be frank, that was borderline crazy._

 _Unfortunately, he was sometimes a crazy child._

 _She knew many humans could use chakra techniques to help fight against physically stronger opponents; however she didn't have very much to teach him any time soon, and he knew this. From what she had seen, he had huge reserves of chakra, yet he couldn't control it in the slightest. Not the mention, most of it was used as a cushion to keep the red chakra and the valley's black chakra away from each other._

 _How did she fix any of that? She was no master of chakra manipulation or education. Despite her size, her chakra pool was more reasonable compared to most boss summons. She preferred genjutsu and using her sheer bulk and strength to win fights; unlike a clan like the toads ruling Mt. Myoboku, who had vast amounts of ninjutsu or the Slugs from Shikkotsu Forest, who could use it to heal and transfer chakra._

" _ **I… see."**_ _Bird-chan said slowly._ _ **"An admirable goal, though… you might need more than just being able to lift yourself with only your arms."**_

 _Naruto's mouth twitched into a frown. "Yeah, I know that, but-"_

" _ **If you believe you'll be able to take on something even a quarter of my size with only brute force, you are mistaken."**_ _the blow was delivered swiftly. Yet what came out of his mouth next took her by surprise. It seemed she underestimated his forethought._

" _Kaakaw-chan, I know." The blond sat up, rubbing his head. "This isn't going to be all I'm doing. I need to get faster, and learn how to abuse weak spots, and stuff too." His eyes lit in delight and a worrying grin spread across his face. She allowed herself a second to appreciate the sight, she would admit to herself that his eyes were her most favorite part. The sky had always held a special place to birds and having a child with eyes the same shade as the sky the first time she had learned to fly was a special privilege she would never tire of._

" _Plus I want to learn jutsu like yours…"_

 _The massive vulture sighed in equal parts amusement and exasperation. She had used a futon jutsu to blow away a particularly murderous summon and Naruto hadn't shut up about it since. Maybe she had gone a bit overboard causing a twister to send the crab–of which she had no idea what the hell was doing away from the ocean–miles away._

 _She would of taught it to him if for no other reason then for him to shut up about it, but again, he wasn't equipped with the necessary knowledge, tools, and experience, and she wasn't an adequate teacher._

 _But if he was insistent on learning how, and she couldn't teach him, who could?_

 _What a question. And who would bother? Random clans came to mind; none of them stuck out to her._

 _The monkeys? No. Their clan had forbidden outsiders since the loss of their long-time summoner. King Enma was especially distraught from his death even years later, apparently they hadn't ended on good terms._

 _Foxes? She didn't even know what they specialized in. The only one she ever met seemed inclined toward fuinjutsu, which didn't help her._

… _The snakes? Hell, they'd probably eat him._

 _A particularly off idea came to her, which almost had her backpedaling mentally in distaste. The old war veteran. From the time she spent around him, she knew he had more chakra then he had any right to, and had spent years among the humans as one of their summons. Would he know something? Most definitely, and she could probably get a favor out of him, though, it was an entirely different thing to wonder if he was sane and safe to let Naruto around._

 _The wars had left him scarred. She recalled stories from her flock about the rise of the badger clan during a ninja war. Of a new summon leading his clan to victory after victory. "Dirt Devil", they spoke with respect and fear. Kill after kill he rose to infamy even among the most bloodthirsty summons. Then came the fall. A yellow flash staining the dirt red and leaving his family and allies dead before he could do anything. Thirteen summon deaths and seventeen summoners gone in one battle._

 _The news had shook the clans. But not as much as when he had been cast from his clan and exiled to the dead lands. She hadn't made the connection until she had seen him cast a rhino summon into a trench big enough to hold her. And with such ease too._

 _She had seen his scars and his mad muttering even as he had walked over the rhino's corpse. He had become so used to death he didn't seem to notice. Would he kill Naruto though…?_

 _There was no better teacher she could think of. He had an abundance of experience with ninja techniques. She would have to at least give him a visit; see if maybe he had simmered down since the last time she had seen him._

* * *

"Hey, Kaakaw-chan…"

His voice knocked her out of her dream-like musings, the last push she needed to awaken her from the final minutes of her long slumber. Her eyes opened, and moved to lock on him as he stood at the entrance of their cavern, dressed in his only heavily frayed and ripped pair of shorts. Before she even saw him though, his shadow informed her of the presence of his most frequent companion.

"What's up, Bird?" the tiny light tan furred fennec resting on Naruto's head raised her paw in casual greeting.

The vulture let out a regulated breath through her nostrils to avoid blowing the two away, before she politely responded to her 'son's friend, one of the natural inhabitants of the dry location. **"Ah… Hello, Tenko, Naruto. How was training?"**

She secretly relished as the blonde huffed in discontent. "The old badger had me shifting sand and earth… again. I think he's finally lost it." Naruto's displeasure was obvious; even more so than the nasty bruise on his calf. Tenko, in contrast, was giggling into an unruly mop of hair. The vulture raised up an eyelid in interest at the dry comment.

" **Hm? I was under the impression that** _ **it's**_ **already been lost?"**

"Yip." Tenko wasted no time nodding in confirmation. "Totally gone. You'd think he might have Naruto doing something other than trying to move dirt under his feet, and climbing stuff. Kinda funny to watch though."

Naruto rolled his eyes. " 'Just put push the chakra through your feet like this', and 'punch the tree like that'; '…now climb that tree with those bounders tied to your legs' " Those weren't the exact words, though that's what the mocking part of Naruto's brain envisioned the weird badger saying.

" **Ah, nonsense."** The giant dark feathered bird spoke. **"…It builds character. He knows better than any of us what humans do in order to train their chakra."**

The blond's thoughts trailed off for a second at the end, distant memories of faces flashing through his mind, before what she said fully registered in his head. "I'm not sure I want 'character'." he deadpanned. "I want to be able to do those wind techniques. I don't even think he's trying."

"… **Yes, yes, child."** His adoptive mother sighed. **"In due time. Think of what he's teaching you like a… stepping stone. I can't imagine it being very easy to perform wind based techniques if all you have to move the wind without chakra is your lungs. You don't exactly have the benefit of huge paws or wings to help."**

"I don't know, he was flapping _pretty_ fast when he fell off that tree. He definitely caught air." Tenko smirked. "Blondie flew just like a penguin!" she exclaimed, mimicking a bird's wings with her front legs.

Naruto's finger twitched, as he glared upwards. "At least I can actually climb a tree."

The tan fennec yipped. "Yep. That's one of the reasons why you're carrying me."

"…Shut up."

"Yes-sir!"

Bird-chan raised her voice to interrupt their banter. **"Are you staying hydrated, Naruto? I don't want another situation like last month."**

Even to this day, he would randomly collapse and that red and black chakra would consume him. Although, it did seem to lessen in intensity since it first happened to him. She wasn't quite aware what exactly was happening to him at this point, it didn't appear that his outward appearance was changing any more. Was his chakra system _still_ adapting to the environment?

Questions aside, It was better to be safe than sorry, as his latest incident nearly had him dehydrated beyond saving.

Naruto frowned, looking down at his makeshift water pouch. "Uh… I haven't really had anything to drink since this morning." his stomach growled. "…Or anything to eat, besides that rabbit Tenko and I shared earlier." said fennec licked her chops in memory of the animal. Rest in peace, rabbit.

" **Naruto-"** The vulture admonished in worry.

The blond quickly cut her off. "-I'll go get some water down at the river, ok? I'll see if I can find anything to eat while I'm there." he turned. "I'll see you in a little while, if you're still here!"

The bird shook her head. **"I'm going to go find something to eat myself after you leave…. Please stay safe."**

"Mm." Naruto hummed in acknowledgement as bumped the tip of his geta into the rock in order to make sure they were secure to his feet. He waved, and felt Tenko grip hard on his mop of hair when he stepped towards the drop-off. "Ok, Kaakaw-chan."

"Hey wait-! Don't you-!" With that, he promptly stepped over the edge of the cliff, the fennec on his head quickly inhaling in protest. "Naru-!"

The blond's mouth formed in a small grin. "Payback."

His sandals hit the steep slant of the rocky decline, Tenko still protesting with comically large eyes. "N-Not If you and I are dead, stupid!" Naruto laughed, ignoring the dull ache in his lower left leg, rapidly sliding down the grand hill towards the ground, skipping over, twisting, and dodging around obstacles in his path.

The ground eventually went from moderately sized rocks and hard packed earth, to pebbles and sand. At this, Naruto stood to his full height and ran the rest of the way down, being careful to avoid throwing Tenko off with any sudden movements. He had done this several times before; though rarely with her on his head.

…She would be fine. As always.

The boy jumped over a sharp dip in the ground, coming to a stop as he landed on one foot–on the leg lacking the results of the worst part of his day thus far–on the other side in a display of agility. The roots of his hair were still being held tight by the small shaking paws of his companion. If he could have seen her, he would have seen eyes quickly filling with fury. "Ha-…"

He didn't get to finish his taunt, Tenko was already opening her mouth to chomp down on his ear. Which she indeed proceeded to do. "Ow, Ow! Stop!"

The fennec unclamped her teeth, her voice squeaking out in fear, irritation, and anger. "Never again! Stop doing that!"

"Fine, fine, fine…" The blond said, in in effort to calm her down. Maybe it would have worked, had he not shot himself in the foot with his next words, said just under his breath. "…Maybe-"

She bit down again. "Akh!"

* * *

Trekking across the valley in the space between his home and the river didn't take too terribly long. 30 minutes at most to the nearest point, across rocks, sand, and the occasional patch of desert plants and trees. The quickly falling sun was rather merciful on them, thankfully, and the area was generally quite cool.

Tenko was still grumbling to herself incoherently about Naruto, looking around and watching for possible threats. The fennec's head twitched each and every way as she eyes the surroundings for danger. Snakes that might be hiding in the earth waiting to strike, scorpions wary of threats, spiders burrowed in their holes, coyotes on the lookout for prey, and predatory birds that might be passing by, unaware of the one that had practically claimed this area…

Really, a majority of the local fauna. The term 'dead lands' was misleading, they were alive, but the creatures were seldom seen in the open.

Naruto himself let out a bored yawn, not as worried about anything of the sort. His blue hues drifted upwards toward his cautious companion. "Would you stop?" He would know of anything approaching before Tenko would anyway.

"…Stop what?" her head swiveled so that she was looking behind them.

"You do this all the time." The blond lightly flicked her ear, causing the small animal to let out a grunt of dissatisfaction. "Being so tense. Your eyeballs'll pop out of your head."

Tenko rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, sorry I'm not at peace with nature, or whatever." she said sarcastically.

"Hm." Naruto nodded sagely, a playful smile coming to his face. "As long as you know, you can start your journey to-" he squinted, searching through his vocabulary for the correct word. "-enlightenment."

"Yes, Naruto-sensei, teach me your fearless ways." she poked his nose with her paw. He promptly took advantage of this distraction.

"Look, a river crocodile!" he suddenly faked surprise, and dramatically pointed, as they reached the top of the sandy hill which led down to the river and surrounding greenery; the river oasis. It was deep, and was probably wide enough to tire him out if he were to swim to the other side. That is, if something lying in wait below the surface didn't swallow him whole before that point.

Chances were if some of the largest of the water dwellers weren't present, there were some shrimps in their place.

Well… 'Shrimp' was subjective.

"What-?!" Tenko pulled her head up so fast that the blond thought she would get whiplash. The fennec quickly scanned the river, however saw nothing of the sort. Only blueish-green water, sand, and a healthy helping of plant life. Her voice turned monotone in bland annoyance. "…Huh?"

Naruto waved off her confusion, his eyes gleaming playfully. "Ha. Kidding. But yeah, we're here." he stated the obvious as he gestured outward.

"Hmph. You're-" Tenko huffed in irritation as they descended the hill, only to hear something like… faint groaning? "-mean…?"

Both blinked; the strange noise grew louder. This immediately set the two off, sending them into anti-detection mode. Naruto hurriedly took action and dashed down the remainder of the hill, hiding behind one of the many huge palm trees that covered the bank. He slowed his breathing, and could feel Tenko do the same.

They waited several more seconds for the groaning to stop, or quiet down, or something other than get louder, as it did. And more numerous. Multiple. Alarm gripped them tighter.

A silent plan went understood between the two companions. Naruto carefully scooted right, but not around the tree enough to be able to be seen by something looking at the opposite side. Tenko laid her ears back and slowly peeked around, using her small size to her advantage, instead of letting Naruto poke his much larger head out.

Looking through the other trees into the distance, what she saw ranked among the strangest things she had seen since Naruto.

After a second, she whispered, sounding thoroughly puzzled. "What are those things?" a single ear flipped upward.

The blond raised an eyebrow. "Uh… What things?" Naruto asked in a voice just as subtle and quiet. Just what was she talking about? Should he look?

"And how many are there?"

"Er… I don't know?" Tenko paused, though she didn't even bother to count. "A _lot_?"

Naruto's mouth twitched into a frown at her response. That wasn't quite the type of measurement he was looking for. "Like, um, ten? Fifteen?"

"Way more than that," the small fennec pulled her head back. She appeared slightly nervous, but not enough to make him worried. "Whatever those things are, they're way over on the other side of the river. See for yourself, they aren't even looking this way… I don't even think they can see…" Tenko trailed off as a cold shiver went through her spine, causing a few hairs to stand on end.

The blond was curious enough though, taking her word for it as he leaned out from their hiding spot. And she was right. Realistically, it would prove pretty damn hard to see them even if 'they' were looking in the first place. Even so, just from looking at them, the same chill that shot through his companion also graced him as well. The way they looked, the way they moved…

Hulking vaguely human-esque creatures of sizes varying from twice to multiple times his own height were mindlessly spilling over the lip of sand on the other side of the river oasis, swaying in unison along the water. Every single one was covered and wrapped in long scraps of cloth that made do as clothing, and also covered their eyes and ears. If not deaf, he was quite sure they were all completely blind. A fair few were even armed, though none of which he could pick out as having metal weapons.

To say it were strange would be a grand understatement.

"What… are they?" Naruto breathed. He could feel his chakra beginning to flare up in response the the bad vibes that were spilling off from the sight alone.

"Uh? Besides freaky? I don't know. I've never seen them before, I'll have to ask my mother or father."

"Hm." The boy narrowed his eyes in curiosity and cautiously started taking slow steps to get closer to the river, staying in the vicinity of the cover the trees provided.

" _Naruto-!_ " Tenko hissed, swatting at his nose. "What are you doing?!"

A thought occurred to him as she said this. "…I'm going to get closer to pick up some water." he then reached up and grabbed her from his head, quickly setting her on the ground, much to her apparent confusion. Her unanswered question was readily answered by his next words, however. "You. Stay hidden over here just in case, ok?"

"Huh?!" she squeaked quietly. "Are you crazy?! What if they hear you or something?! They don't look all that friendly!"

Naruto shook his head. "Like you said, they're across the river, and don't look like they can see. And if they dive in to come after me, the water will give me plenty of time to get away, right?"

"What if-?" Tenko opened her mouth to retort, yet paused. A second later, and she couldn't come up with much beside a reluctant "Tch… fine… alright." along with a concerned frown. "Just don't make too much noise. Get the water, _fast_."

"Sure, sure…" The boy began to walk out in the open, glancing around to see if there was anything else he should be careful of. Other than the obvious, that was a no. His surprise was steadily growing, however, as the mindless tribe of things kept coming endlessly. He had to wonder; just how many of them were there?

Taking his eyes off of them for a third time, he looked down into the water now right in front of him, before taking a few steps out, kneeling down to fill his pouch. It didn't take long though, before his sights were jumping up with apprehension at their noise. Something about the lack of cover close by, and lack of Tenko near him was making him mildly uncomfortable.

That feeling had been growing with every moment he was in the open, with every disturbing sound they made. Eventually it just evolved to the point where he could have sworn he could actually sense a physical hostility from across the river. Akin to a smell, or sound; yet really it was none of those things.

It was different. Another type. Sending small tingles down his back.

Naruto blinked when he realized he had been standing in the water for nearly a full minute, watching them. Tenko was probably having a heart attack. Shaking his head clear, he lifted his water skin up, and slung it back over his shoulder. The water droplets that dripped from the container and back to the river were enough to make him stop moving, and pay extra attention to possible indicators that any one of them had heard the small noise. That didn't appear to be the case though. They continued on with the same pace, one after the next, after the next.

Where were they even going?

Deciding that was thought to be pondered for another time–and definitely another _place_ –the blond stepped away from the water, and hurried back to where Tenko was hiding. Said fox was quick in croaking her desire to leave as soon as possible, and he couldn't agree more.

"Come on… Let's go, let's go, let's go…"

The blond lightly inhaled, nodding as he looked back repeatedly. "We are." With a deft scoop of the small creature, she was then resting firmly back on his head, and Naruto didn't hesitate to take off through the vegetation, and over the river bank's lip.

They promptly stopped at the top, frozen in place at the sight before them. The only thing that managed to escape the blond's mouth were short words of disbelief. "Wh… What….?"

"N-Naruto…"

Another line of them. And another. More. He was having a bit of trouble counting at the moment. This time there was no river between. Only land. A vast stretch of rocky, vaguely lifeless land. For several seconds, he stared.

"That's…-" his companion could tell his voice was beginning to shake. She was just as, if not more, alarmed.

"N-No. No. No. No, no, no… W-What!? No!" Tenko squeaked out lowly, her panic rising dramatically. "W-What are these things?!"

Naruto gulped, realizing they were about to have a much larger problem on their hands. "-not good."

They had to find a way around. Or hide until they were gone. But who knew if there were even more on the way? And what if they started to come towards them? It looked like half of the entire species of the things were here, there would be no surprise left to have if even more were on the way. The lines ran as far as the eye could see.

Insane. Crazy.

Were they some sort of moving tribe? They had to be. They were vast in numbers, and organized; like ants on a much, much grander scale. That is, if "tribe" could even be used to describe this. "Race" would probably be more far more accurate.

Tenko looked around. "What do w-we… do?"

"I…" -don't know. He was honestly lost for words, and ideas. However, it certainly did appear that there was no clear way around them, and getting closer in distance to them than he could throw a well balanced stick was not something he planned on doing. If there was one, sure. Two? Ok, fine. Three? He'd be hesitant, but…

There were hundreds upon hundreds, of them. Maybe thousands. Unless they suddenly started breaking out in song, spreading flower petals across the land, he was solidly locked into the mindset that they were hostile. His eyes were telling him that, his ears were telling him that, his instincts were telling him that, and finally whatever that strange feeling was that was seeping into his pores… it was driving the stake through his head. Getting close would be suicide.

That left only one option, really. To stay there and wait. For the things to pass, or to be rescued.

Kaakaw-chan had to have seen the creatures, right? If not, she would certainly see them soon. Maybe not powerful enough to take them on, however there was a distinctly obvious advantage she had over all of them, and over most of the creatures in and around the valley. Wings.

"We… can't go anywhere, can we…?" Tenko came to the same conclusion he did. Neither liked it in the slightest.

"No…" Naruto reached up and grabbed her, setting the fox to the ground before he shook his head. Both began to retreat down the hill back towards the trees and plants they had previously hidden in. "It… doesn't look like it." he grit his teeth.

Naruto picked a spot sitting against a tree that would provide them cover from view, though he was doubting that was needed given what they were hiding from. He watched as Tenko paced nervously back and forth in front of him. "Not good, not good…" It took several minutes of this behavior before she finally caved and sat down next to him.

He himself was starting to scratch nervously at the bark of tree. Every thirty seconds or so–of which his mind had taken to subconsciously count–he wound lean around and take a quick observing glance at their current problem just to make sure they weren't doing anything other than what they had been.

Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen.

The waves of emotion were beginning to impact his brain harder than ever. He could now also feel Tenko's fear and anxiety, in conglomeration with the majorly aggressive waves coming from the lines of the hulking ogre-like beings. It was strange. It hurt, He didn't know what was causing it.

His nail dug through the bark, and that seemed to be his trigger. He wanted to leave. He had to leave. It was crushing him. Where was Kaakaw-chan?

The blond's eyes flickered upwards. He had barely caught Tenko as she was dashing back down the hill. When did she even get up there?

"Naruto! Naruto! Shes right there! Get up, quick! I'm not sure she can see me, but sh-!"

He didn't wait for her to finish. Instantly he was up on his feet, grabbing the small animal in the process as he scaled the hill for a third time. The fennec restrained herself from yipping out of habit in surprise. The boy's eyes found and locked onto the giant dark blotch in the sky, relief flooding his system.

"We're here!" Naruto yelled as loud as he feared he could. "Over here!" He didn't receive any confirmation that she had seen them and for a moment he felt worried as the surrounding summons shifted slightly at his loud outburst. Time froze and Naruto felt as the hostile feeling gave way to something darker and more violent. The moment and his eardrums were shattered when Kaakaw-chan let out a screech.

He released a short sigh as the things froze in their tracks.

It was a testament to her size that even far above them, the avian's shadow eclipsed the clan around them several times over. Naruto wondered how she didn't scare the creatures around them. Even now, the aggressive, violent natured feeling was gone but something close to… cautiousness and unease was there. But no fear. Tenko's fear had a sharp spike of intensity every time she whimpered. These things weren't scared. Hesitant yes, but not scared. And honestly, that horrorified Naruto more than anything.

Tien-sensei had admitted to fearing Kaakaw-chan before. If the most combat experienced summon Naruto knew feared her, did that mean these things were stronger? Cold dread flooded Naruto. And there were so many of them.

His thoughts were broken, and he was forced to raise a hand to cover his eyes and curl around Tenko when a dust cloud meters thick arose as Kaakaw-chan landed as softly as she could. Softly being below hurricane force winds, of course. Pupils dilated in worry locked unto him despite the dust. **"Child, are you both well!?"**

Tenko was already leaping unto their saviors feathers and babbling incoherently. Naruto winced at her claws digging painfully into his shoulder before she leapt. Naruto opened his mouth to berate the small mammal for hurting him when he noticed that the things were still focused on him.

Not Kakaaw-chan. Him. He could tell.

Why? Kaakaw-chan was right here. She was more dangerous than did they even know where exactly he was?

In his emotion driven panic, his control slipped and his chakra pulsed angrily. It lashed out; a red, blue, and black gash of life energy surged through the ground and air around him. The sandy beach dried up and cracked beneath his feet, becoming seemingly lifeless before his 'audience'.

Sage, he hated his chakra. It was so… inhuman compared to everyone else's. He could never figure it out. He had so much power and strength but it was so violent even the easiest control exercise became a war as he wrestled his tri-colored chakra to try to do what he wanted. The badger had said that he was abnormal. Chakra shouldn't be made of more than two parts. Yin and yang combined to make one part, regular chakra. Summons and very special humans could use Nature, or sage, chakra to further supplement their chakra as a second part. In this case, the blue and black parts were his and the valley's chakra fighting. So, what was the third part, the red chakra.

It didn't act like any chakra his sensei had ever encountered. It was caustic and acidic, poisoning anything that came in contact with it and leaving his skin blistered and boiled from use. But it also somehow healed his worst wounds. Stitching and mending even the most life threatening wounds he procured. Sometimes, depending on how large or small, in seconds. It continually baffled him and his sensei until he had been banned from using it until he could better control it.

Not that he actually liked using it in the first place.

Naruto was jerked from his thoughts when a stampede of rushed footsteps shook the ground beneath them. He looked up expecting the worst, his legs tense and ready to move. Had the things decided to-!?

He registered what was going on. It was actually quite the opposite.

'… _No?'_ He narrowed his eyes. They were further away than before.

…What?

Yards away, the things had piled on top of each other in their hasty attempt to retreat from whatever they were scared of. Naruto stared baffled at the 'monsters' that were somehow replaced with whimpering and frightened look-alikes. He glanced around him even taking the time to do a full 360° turn trying to understand what had caused them to run away. Not a thing was different. Perhaps Kaakaw-chan? Nope, she looked as confused as he felt.

Tenko looked terrified of him.

…That was understandable she had never been around when used his chakra raw like that. He'd have to apologize later.

'… _Oh.'_

Looking around, he noticed a perfect circle was formed by the creatures. And dead center….him. _'They're… scared of me…?'_ Why did that make so much sense?

Confusion, ever present as it was, grabbed him. But he wanted away from here. Without another second of waiting he went to climb up unto Kaakaw-chan. The circle stayed equal measurements as he walked over to her. In fact, it was stunning, and downright surreal, to see the 'whatever they were' falling over themselves to keep their distance.

Naruto carefully grabbed Tenko, who flinched, and began to scale the tail feathers of his mother figure, with her help by bending down to make the climb less vertical. Once he was up, the boy gave her a hard tap, and Kaakaw-chan took off, blowing sand, sticks, shrubs and rocks everywhere, bending trees, and sending water from the river over the other edge as it tried to escape from the wind.

Naruto's last look showed hundreds of heads craning around to the sound of flapping wings as they flew away. Naruto shivered under the scorching sun. Those things were creepy.

He could still feel the waves of emotion coming off of them even from up here.

* * *

It didn't take very long before he and Kaakaw-chan got back to their mountain cave home, and by the time they did, the sun was falling below the horizon. The flight to and from Tenko's home was silent. She had curled up as far as physically possible away from him without falling off, shaking. It had stung but he could understand. His chakra was scary and poor Tenko had practically been assaulted by it. His emotional high had no doubt made it worse on her. She was quite the sensitive sensor and any sharp change in chakra would send her spiraling into a feverish fit.

He had never lost control quite like that in recent times. Though, he had a feeling that even if she knew the chakra was present in him, she would have still reacted the same. Really, she probably did know about it, and didn't mention it because she thought it was a human thing. The red was just so… violent. Harsh. Most obvious of them all now, terrifying.

She was better at controlling it but his chakra was something else. She had to be carried off Kaakaw-chan by her brothers. After Kaakaw-chan had explained what had happened to the fox 'clan' leaders, Tenko's parents, they had given a solemn nod and thanked him for being with her. After a promise to come by for dinner and to properly meet him, they had left silent and solemn on the way back. Tenko had given a shakey bye as he left but he hadn't responded in time.

Now he sat in a corner, guilt ridden for hurting his friend, questions circling around in his head.

What were those? Why did they look so human like? Why were they carrying weapons? Why were all their eyes covered in cloth? How about why there were so many? It was definitely some sort of clan on the move. But, where were they going?.

Kaakaw-chan perched near him politely watching as he tried to gather his thoughts. A silent towering guardian. Most kids had teddy bears. "Kaakaw-chan… W-What were those things?" He inwardly cringed at how his voice sounded. Usually it was loud and boisterous, bouncing off the walls and giving his nest mother a headache. It could barely be heard over her soft breathing.

For a moment, he thought she hadn't heard him and he readied himself to raise his voice for her. She seemed to noticed and interrupted before he could shout in the enclosed space. **"Doki."**

Naruto repeated the word, slowly. "Doki…?" He couldn't help to think that the word fit them as ugly as they were.

" **Yes. They are Doki. A Summoning clan of the far North or South… They are an awfully strange clan that has no Homeland, and some very unique traditions. They migrate from the north to the south, and vice versa, of the summon lands every few years… Strangely enough, they usually go through different areas, avoiding this place, and only do it in small groups as to not panic the more 'excitable' clans. The barren north must be highly uninhabitable this year for them all to move at once…"** She spoke softly to him knowing from past experience, her voice filled the cave easily for him to hear her.

Naruto was surprised to hear they had no Homeland. Usually only more aquatic summons like whales, dolphins, and sharks were able to live without a set place to stay. Homelands were highly treasured and rumored to be a clan's lifeline. Most clans who lost their Homeland went extinct or were folded into similar clans and lost to inner mating after a many years. Not to mention how every homeland was unique to whatever clan held it such as how Mount Myoboku had a very toad styled environment.

Tien-sensei said that it was because the nature chakra was influenced by whatever lived there. More toads meant a more toad-friendly setting. It took years to terraform a Homeland to fit a new animal clan due to how slow it took more nature chakra to change and adapt.

The most surprising thing was the place they inhabited. He was about to ask but it seemed Kaakaw-chan was expecting the question. **"They are extremely tough summons. They have to be. As you know,"** Kaakaw-chan sent him a look that said 'you'd better know after all my lessons',

" **the North is a desolate Wasteland and the South is nothing but ice and sub-zero temperatures. The Doki have been living in the two areas for as long as there have been animal clans. Even when the lands were broken up and given to the animals that best fit them, the Doki were adamant on being allowed to continue to migrate. They are the most numerous Summoning clan in the lands, dwarfing even the snakes and serpent kind. They boast boss summons in the hundreds and even though they are usually docile, when attacked or angered they are nearly unstoppable. The Doki clan is the cause of more clan extinctions than any other."** Her voice was somber but chiding to ensure Naruto did not harass them like he did others. Doki didn't hold grudges they killed anything that was stupid enough to bother them.

" **Their behavior today is abnormal but I believe the new experience with a human and how….different your chakra is that it could be understandable how they reacted. Be proud little one, usually only sages are able to scare a Doki."** Now she sounded more amused than anything.

Naruto's thoughts exploded into words. "But if they are so weird and dangerous why haven't you mentioned them before. And their eyes were covered, why? And they look like weird messed up humans. And why are there so many? Where do they even food if the north and south are so barren, and lifeless, and stuff…?"

" **Hush. I promise to answer all your questions. Now, most parents don't warn their children about the Doki because they aren't seen. Like I said, the Doki pass in small groups. Clans let them pass through unobstructed for fear of their wrath. Nothing hunts a Doki… Alone they are deadly, groups are able to massacre most clans, all together would bring the end of any clan that attacks them."**

The blond's eyes widened.

" **They use those club weapons most of them were carrying because as far as I know they don't know any jutsu and they have no natural weapons like claws to help them fight. I don't know for what purpose exactly they cover their eyes, however most Doki are completely blind anyway."**

"Most? Are there some that can see?"

The giant vulture continued on, without skipping a beat. **"Their eyes are weak; the sunlight in the North causes Doki to go blind within a few days of their birth, and their poor genetics pertaining to the visual sense doesn't help. The South is constantly snowing and dark so they have no need for them. Though, it wouldn't matter even if a Doki could use his or her eyes, anyhow. The wrappings around their eyes are most certainly a clan tradition, though, their sense of smell and hearing more than makes up for it."**

Silence engulfed the cave for a few seconds, as Naruto internalized all of this new information. He lifted his head to her again. "So, um… why do they look so much like big humans?"

" **Ah, yes. Doki are definitely similar to humans. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly why, I can only guess that it's simply due to coincidence. Perhaps that is what a human's offspring would look like after thousands of years in the summon lands, with all of it's concentration of chakra and such."** Kaakaw-chan shot a quick look at her child to see if he was satisfied but rolled her eyes when he was still waiting for her answer to the last question. Perceptive and curiosity were some of his best and worst traits.

Kaakaw-chan struggled with how to reveal the Doki's darkest trait. **"Doki are cannibalistic."**

"Huh…?" The simple answer seemed to go over the poor boys head. He looked like he was waiting for the real answer. She stayed silent, until he got the picture. His face paled. If he wasn't terrified of the Doki before he was now.

" **Doki usually breed in large numbers and allow themselves to grow in size until it is suitable for them to feast. After that,"** she paused for a moment. There really was no easy way to put this, **"they hold a free-for-all and once a certain number is reached they eat and start the cycle over."** She added almost as an afterthought, **"For the clan to be as small as they were, they must've just feasted to make the migration."**

The last fact sent Naruto reeling. _'Small!?'_ There had been so many of them. He didn't know what he would do if there twice as many as there were. "That's… crazy." The boy tried to envision even more. He and Tenko had gotten lucky. If there had been a higher number, who knows if whether or not they would have just flooded through the entire area.

"Um… Thanks Kaakaw-chan. I… need some time to… think." He felt lost and hollow after learning about the monstrous Doki.

Naruto grabbed his knife and a half-finished wooden carving of Tenko. Maybe he could give it to her and apologize when he next saw her. His footsteps felt too loud to his ears as he lurched his way to the jutting cliff at the peak of the mountain that overlooked the Valley's dead lands.

He sat on the edge of the cliff and allowed his legs to dangle over the side and sway with the wind as he laid down, looking up, and carefully digging the tip of his knife into the small wooden carving. Any fear of heights were killed after flying with Kaakaw-chan and now he just observed the view. It was approaching night dusk. The last of the sun's rays shone over the distant surrounding mountains, and Naruto took time to appreciate the serene night sky. His stomach twinged anytime he gazed at the moon for too long, how strange. The stars were like diamonds and it was a picture perfect sight.

It was ruined though when he pulled himself back into a sitting position and casted his eyes downward, able to make out a giant moving mass. The Doki could still very much be seen, causing him to frown.

' _Small… Yeah, right.'_

Naruto inhaled suddenly, before exhaling hard. "…What the fuck." he'd been wanting to say that. His words were lost to the empty air, though it summarized his thoughts pretty well. The words of Kaakaw-chan kept replaying in his head. More specifically, the end.

Honestly, it made him angry. Maybe it was just how nature swayed, but…

The crackof his small knife breaking snapped him out of his thoughts. Looking down, it seemed like his hands had been carving of their own accord. His knife was broken, but the wooden fennec was finished. He gave it a look over and deemed it good enough to give to her.

A speck of red caught his eye, and when he looked over, he had a gash in his palm from accidentally breaking his knife in his hand. Before he could even lick the blood off, his skin temporarily heat up around the cut, and he watched it seal up. Naruto gave a sigh as the red chakra once more continued to baffle him. Even more so, now that he was able to sense what others felt. He could feel Kaakaw-chan's worry over him and his own fear about the Doki.

What was that? And why did it appear now?

Biting his lip, Naruto focused his eyes and the new sense on where the Doki were still moving. It was so incredibly easy to feel the huge bubble of emotion surrounding them, even from here. _Anger, rage, hunger…?_

It didn't make sense. It plagued his mind. Why were they angry? Why were they enraged? Why were they _hungry_?

Naruto stared at them for several minutes, before shaking his head, sighing. "Whatever…" The boy gave one last glance at the mass, clutching the small wooden creation, before getting up and heading inside to bed to sleep against soft, warm feathers…

* * *

 **End**

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 **xxTerror33xx: I promise and swear the next chapter won't take as long. And if it feels like a lot of information was thrown at you… well it was. This chapter in a lot of ways, is Naruto's start of his journey. There's a lot of info you need as a reader going forward to understand later chapters. I sincerely hope it didn't overwhelm you and I beg that you read this chapter more than once to make sure you get everything outta it. Have a good day or night. Peace.**

 **Impassive Purple: Oh… these next chapters are gonna be a bitch. We're gonna die. But yeah. See ya.**


	7. How To Train Your Shinobi

**Impassive Purple: Hi.**

 **xxTerror33xx: You. More reading yay. See it only took us a week this time instead of two months. Not much to say except Yuuka starts ninjaing. Shut up autocorrect that's a word damnit. Anyway enjoy.**

 **Impassive Purple: (Silently laughing as the auto-correct goes off 50 times); and yes, enjoy.**

* * *

Failure. The word stuck to her everywhere she went. No information had been discovered about her brother; even her father hadn't found anything. News had finally leaked and of course it spread like wildfire as the elemental nations scurried to find the lost boy, whether to return for good favor, to kill or hold hostage, or to make him one of their own.

Which would be better? Knowing he really is alive, only to be held captive by enemies for political favors… Or being forever without the knowledge what had happened or where he is?

Was that really a question? Not in her mind.

Yuuka hadn't stepped outside for nearly a month. How could she face the world when she had failed.

" _Yuuka… I'm sorry… I didn't get anything out of them either."_ Something she assumed would be quite the challenge, given who he was up against, a meeting amongst the most powerful shinobi in the elemental nations. Yet, all hope was pushed into the gutter at that moment. _"Don't let it get to you, we will find him. I promise. Take some time off for now sweetie."_

She appreciated her dad's words and the various words of several shinobi, who the twins were close with before the Kidnapping, and even the villagers gifts, but it didn't stop her feeling hollow. She knew she shouldn't blame herself, that she had no control over what had happened; it still didn't stop her from laying in bed though.

" _In fact, the shinobi academy will be starting a little less than a week from now. Why don't you focus on that…?"_ The silent message he was trying to send to her was clear. "Take your mind off of it."

She couldn't.

Still, here she was.

Yuuka's face was a picture of resident depression. Eyes downcast, arms hanging at her sides, and hair fixed into a rough ponytail as she watched her future classmates enter the academy building. Dark bags still hung under her reddened eyes, and the shadow of the oak only made her look that much more dreary.

"Come on, Yuuka." her father placed a hand on her shoulder, giving a small smile of encouragement. He looked picture perfect, but she could tell he was still sad and disappointed with the results of the meeting. As Hokage, he had to give the image of an unfailing leader at all times.

Strong willed.

He hadn't been home much since the meeting and had taken to hiring a retired kunoichi to come by to cook and clean. One look at the lady had told Yuuka all she needed to know. Pale blonde hair and green eyes. _Yamanaka_.

Looking even further _underneath the underneath_ , as Kakashi would put it, the woman was young, just a few years shy of her father. From the marks on her stomach, she had children. Yuuka supposed it made sense from a Yamanaka's point of view. If she wouldn't confide in her various male influences, why not introduce a female one, even better make it as close to a mother as possible.

If she was a normal seven year old it would've worked. She wasn't normal though. Nine tails of Yin chakra constantly influencing her mind insured she would always be ahead of her age.

That's possibly why she wanted to roll her eyes when she overheard some of the nonsense, immature ruckus made by her classmates as her and her father stepped through the door of the room. Thankfully enough, it quieted down immediately as the children caught sight of their Hokage.

And then their eyes drifted down to her.

Minato waited a second looking around at the class, before leaning down and whispering. "Don't be nervous, go find a seat. I'm going to be starting my speech in a moment."

Yuuka nodded, sighing, and mumbled a small "Ok, dad…"

She stepped forward, and although most eyes broke off from her, many stayed as she made her way up to the very back left corner, and sat next to someone she vaguely recognized as a Hyuuga. The redhead gave a small gesture of greeting, raising her hand, though the small girl beside her didn't seem to respond very well. To be honest, she didn't seem to look like she responded well to anything around her in general.

"H… H-hi…"

Usually, Yuuka would have given a normal introduction in return, but… most of the last week, including today, she had not been 'usual'. So instead, she simply rested her head on the desk in front of her, and waited for her father to start speaking.

The teacher of the class–or at least, who she thought would be teacher. He looked like a teacher-type–clasped his hands together. "Ok everyone. Hello! Welcome to the shinobi academy! My name is Iruka Umino, I'll hopefully be your sensei for the next few years, but my introduction can wait. Now, Hokage-sama is probably very busy, so if everyone would please stand in order to-"

Minato raised a hand, shaking his head with a friendly smile. "It's fine Iruka." He looked towards the class, starting off with a greeting. "Hi! I see that quite a few of you are nervous, but don't worry… As of today, everyone in this classroom–with the exception of myself and Iruka, of course–can consider themselves shinobi in training, for Konohagakure no Sato!" The blond emphasized this by pointing to his hitai-ate. He watched as grins and smiles broke out across many of the children's faces.

Then, his face became far more serious.

"Now, some of you might not last in the academy. Each and every one of you should be aware of this. If you do not try, you _will not_ succeed as a shinobi. While it can be a well paying occupation, that is _not_ what you should be here for… As Konoha ninja, and future Konoha ninja, we have a duty far more important than rank, or creed, or money!" Minato put a fist to his chest with an audible thump.

"To protect our friends, our fellow shinobi, this village and the land of fire, it's citizens, it's economy; our entire way of life… even at the cost of our own!" his voice was firm, his features solid. Unwavering. The blond himself remembered being the target of this speech from the third. He could only hope that every year, he was being just as inspiring.

"We are all a team, aside from our personal differences or disagreements. Is this understood?" the man's eyes tracked across the rows, stopping on his daughter for a fraction of a second more than the rest, but continuing on, making sure there was absolutely no opposition to his words. Minato took a deep breath. "I said… Is this understood!?"

"Y-yes sir!" the children all said in unison, even the quietest of the bunch. They understood the gravity.

The fourth's serious expression suddenly morphed into a grin at the response. It was quite unlike him to be so serious in normal day-to-day, however he had to drill these words into their heads. There was one easy, effective way to do that.

"Good! Now, are there any questions?"

One dark haired girl slowly raised her hand, a frown forming. "Yes… I think I do…"

"Hm? What would that be?"

"Uh… W-What made _you_ decide to become a ninja, Hokage-sama?" Yuuka blinked. She was also interested in that question.

Minato raised an eyebrow. "What made me decide…?" He tapped his chin. "Truthfully, I didn't think I mentally had much of another option at the time. I didn't have any family, or any influence like that. Though, I would always watch the shinobi in awe as they dashed around, how they could do all these interesting techniques, and seemed so brave. I would see the Hokage's faces on the monument, watching over the village, making sure all of us civilians would rarely have to experience the hardships of war or bloodshed. I wanted to be like them; and I'm an advocate for hard work, and achieving your goals." The blond nodded in satisfaction of his own words. "That was my goal. So here I am. Does that answer your question?"

The girl slowly nodded. "Yes, sir…"

Minato waited a moment more, and seeing nothing, he decided to finish up his speech. "Ok! If that's all, then I will let the introductions start. I wish each one of you the best of luck! Iruka- _sensei_?"

"Ah, yes, Hokage-sama! Let's begin! I guess we'll go row by row, starting on the front left! Will each one of you state your names clearly for myself and the rest of the class?"

Yuuka saw her father wave to her as he proceeded to exit the room. She returned the salutations, and listened to the names. It wouldn't do to talk to someone and not know what to call them. She wouldn't want to create a negative reputation for herself.

The redhead made note of several of the more exuberant characters, those who were bound to be painful to talk to, and probably the most disruptive of the class, or names she had heard in passing. Especially important names, such as Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, Uchiha, Aburame, Inuzuka.

"I-I'm Hinata H-Hyuuga… Nice to meet you all…" And eventually, as expected, a Hyuuga, right before the teacher pointed to her.

Yuuka stood like those before her. She looked around as all the eyes, before stating her name. "I'm Yuuka Namikaze… Hello." Simple. The girl took a breath, before slumping back onto the bench.

Her ears caught the sound of whispers, some of which close enough to make out words and making her twitch in annoyance. Nothing more than she had already heard in her life, but it still irked her, and had her mentally marking people who made them. She could catch stuff like "princess", "rich kid", "spoon fed", "brat".

There was even some talk of her missing brother. She could ignore the rest, but those particular comments, good or bad, forced her mouth open.

"…Shut up." her voice was no more than a few decibels above her normal speaking voice, yet it carried enough authority and irritation to make everyone quiet down.

"Y-Yes, please, all of you." Iruka cleared his throat. "Next please?"

* * *

After everyone finished, the class devolved into silence, Iruka looking at a clipboard and nodding his head to himself. Everyone that registered was present. No absences.

"Ok!" the man set his clipboard down on his desk. "I'm guessing none of you brought anything with you besides yourselves, right?"

This was returned with a bunch of "Yes, sensei."s, to which Iruka let a small smile slip onto his face. He was finally here, teaching his own class.

"That's fine, I didn't expect anything more, but we're going to have to go over what all of you will need in order to start practicing the techniques you'll be learning." Iruka reached into his thigh pouch, and pulled out a kunai and shuriken, hanging both on his fingers. "Everyone knows what these weapons are?"

Again, a wave of "Yes, sensei."s. Iruka ignored these replies though, sifting through the faces to see if a single one had even a hint of questioning. While most understood and knew their names, there were a few that he did catch.

"A kunai, and a shuriken." he flipped up each in order of announcement, to which slight realization dawned on a few of the children's expressions. "These are the most heavily used small weapons in the elemental nations."

He waited a moment, before continuing.

"We'll be learning how to use a lot of different weapons this year, just so you guys can get a feel for them, so you'll know how to use them correctly and… _not_ hurt yourselves! Very important! I'd suggest every single one of you get a practice set of these two different weapons. You'll know a practice set from a real set; they'll be dull everywhere except the tips of the metal where it's intended to stick into the target."

"Yes, sensei."

"Alongside that, we'll be learning about physical fitness and taijutsu!"

Whispers broke out among the small academy students as soon as he said that, which had the man blinking. He didn't think they would be so excited about that. Iruka shrugged, continuing anyhow.

"Proper eating, proper exercise, and proper movements. Eventually, we'll also start simple sparring. This isn't a requirement for your first year, but you may not be able to pass in the future if you can't keep up."

A boy excitedly stood up and put his hand on the desk. "So, sensei, when do we start doing, uh… taijutsu?"

Iruka was caught off guard for a second, however he quickly responded with a smile. "Well, tomorrow, actually! It's an extremely important part of being a combat shinobi! In fact, why don't we get a demonstration of what you'll be learning over the course of these first few months?"

Even more furious whispers, and bigger grins.

"Who here knows the basic Leaf kata? I know there's a few of you…" a few eyes in the crowd narrowed in confusion, others remained unphased, a glint of excitement still present.

Yuuka herself contemplated not raising her hand, like several of the other clan kids had. Unfortunately, the thought that such might look awfully fishy quickly crossed her mind, and she resigned herself to lifting her arm into the air.

"Hmm… Yuuka…" Of course. "And Sasuke? Would you both mind coming down and showing the rest of the class the basic forms?"

The girl blew a strand of hair from her face, sighing as she stood up and began walking down the aisle towards her new sensei. Both her and Sasuke turned towards each other, to which Iruka stepped back.

The redhead lowered into the first leaf kata stance. She waited for the signal to go, as did Sasuke. Iruka didn't give one. It was only when she turned and gave the man a blank stare did he suddenly remember his duty as sensei.

"Oh… Hajime!"

At the command, Yuuka and Sasuke moved in mirror stepping forward, breaking that mirror when they raised their non-dominant arms in a nearly horizontal defensive motion.

Though many of the children grew immediately interested, heavy confusion passed over the previously excited of them.

"Hai!" Iruka confirmed their movement, and the two moved once more, dropping their defensive form. Both stepped forward once more, pushing their dominant arms outward into a false jab for the neck. Yuuka's fingertip touched Sasuke's neck, the same as his did her.

"Hai!"

They pulled their hand back and slid backwards.

"Hai!"

For each, a single leg was now raised, but not extended.

"Hai!" The legs came down, and both spun in a full 360 degree circle, each raising the opposite leg, and meeting at each other's calves with a hook kick motion that lacked any real power.

"Ok, great! A wonderful display! Did everyone-?"

"Oi, sensei! Where's the taijutsu?" the same kid as earlier cut the man off mid-sentence.

"Yeah, where's the fire?! Where's the wind?!" another pitched in.

Iruka raised an eyebrow. "Huh-?" What? What were they talking about?

' _No way…'_ Yuuka's jaw loosened slightly. She looked over all of her classmates, many of them looking just as blown out of the water as she was. Even glancing to the side, Sasuke was critically staring at the boy and his friend, as if wondering if he just heard that right.

"Taijutsu?" Iruka repeated. "That _was_ taijutsu; basic leaf kata movements-"

"No, no, no! The one where you breathe fire, and stuff!"

' _HUH!?'_ He couldn't be serious. Yuuka was incapable of believing it.

"Oh! That's 'Ninjutsu', not 'Taijutsu'. I can see where you get confused. They do have similar names…" The sensei nodded slowly. "Er… You _will_ be learning ninjutsu too, uh… eventually-"

"YES!"

"In a few years…" Yuuka snarked, to which Iruka coughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his sheepishly.

" _Eventually_ …" is all the man finished with.

"WHAT?! That's stupid!" the boy raised his voice in protest.

"Well, chakra techniques require some prior development. You'll need some foundation before learning ninjutsu, and taijutsu is just as, if not more, important! I'll tell you what, though. If the class excels at learning taijutsu, and bukijutsu–weapon techniques–I'll get everyone started on chakra moulding! How does that sound?"

"I guess." The boy huffed. "I still wanted to see something cool, not that lame trash-"

Yuuka rolled her eyes, however a moment later, she swiveled her head to the side as she heard Sasuke whispering to himself. "Hitsuji, Saru, I, Uma, Tora…" each hand-seal he performed with careful movements. She stared in amazement as the Uchiha inhaled, before starting to breath out a small, burst of flame.

' _Oh, right… The Uchiha coming of age thing. No wonder he can do an elemental jutsu at such a young age… He must be proud of himself-'_ a few squeaks in the 'audience' broke her from her thoughts.

Wait, wait, wait. Fire. Inside. Not good. Simultaneously, Yuuka and Iruka's eyes widened. "WOAH, HOLD ON! NOT INSIDE!" She made a movement to stop him. This place would go up like a tinder box! "STOP!"

Sasuke closed his mouth, cutting off the chakra to his jutsu. The fire fizzled out into thin air, and the raven haired boy shot her a blank look. "Calm down. I'm not stupid."

A lot of the room broke out into 'oo's, 'ah's and cheers. Iruka was pale–likely recovering from a stroke–, Yuuka was twitchy, and everyone in the front row was looking as if they thought their life had quite literally flashed before their eyes.

Hell, even the Nara boy, who looked like he thinks watching paint dry is mildly entertaining, was wide eyed and seemed on edge.

"Sh, sh!" Iruka raised his voice. "Ground rules! Ok?! Everyone who knows elemental ninjutsu; please refrain from using it indoors!" he pointed to Sasuke, Yuuka, and everyone sitting in the desks. "Actually, just don't do it ever! Are we clear?!"

"Why? That was so cool!"

To everyone's surprise. Iruka paused. He seemed to be debating something causing his mouth to open and shut several times, before seemingly accepting some unknown fate. He walked over to his board and pulled down a diagram of a chakra network.

Iruka stared at it lost in thought for several seconds before turning around and started in a subdued voice. "Sasuke, would you please come here?"

Sasuke seemed hesitant before nodding and walked up to his instructor. Iruka clasped both hands together nervously and seemed to present Sasuke before the class. "Sasuke is an Uchiha. He comes from a clan of well-known ninja that have been ninja for a very long time. His chakra network," Iruka vaguely waved to the picture behind him. "-is more developed in two very specific areas."

Sasuke jumped slightly when Iruka softly tapped his chest and then his temples. "His lungs and his eyes. Uchiha are known for their doujutsu, the Sharingan, and their ability to be unsurpassed in Katon, or fire, elemental jutsu."

"Now, this means that Sasuke can use fire jutsu easier and at a younger age and it means that Sasuke will also eventually be able to unlock the Sharingan. It seems like an unfair advantage and it _is,_ but it's also a double edged sword. Can anyone guess why?"

The class, unsurprisingly, didn't answer. The lecture was very somber and breaking the increasing tension prevented anyone from speaking. Iruka waited a moment for anyone to answer before directing a question to Sasuke. "Sasuke do you know what is the greatest cause of death in the Uchiha clan, besides dying as ninja?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes in concentration for a sec before licking his lips and stuttering out a haphazard answer. "U-um, training accidents?"

Iruka hummed in minor disagreement, "That's a good guess. Much better than I expected. But no. It's cancer. In most cases, lung cancer."

Sasuke seemed as surprised as everyone else at Iruka's revelation.

"When using a Katon element jutsu, you take chakra and transform it into fire that feeds off the oxygen in your lungs. While you gather the necessary amount of fire for the jutsu, it causes smoke and other impurities to gather. Most of it is expelled with the jutsu but some stays behind. After years, it has gathered enough to cause cancer or cause lungs to collapse all together."

The class looked horrified at the news. Sasuke was trembling under Iruka hands as he continued as if he hadn't just scared the class from using ninjutsu, particularly Katon ninjutsu, ever.

"The chakra network in a Uchiha is usually able to handle the strain or can repaired before damage can become unfixable. But a child's lung cannot." Iruka's tone was solemn and tired. He stared through them in a trance as he gave his speech.

"Now, this isn't just the Uchiha or just Katon jutsu. The Hyuuga have been known to go blind prematurely from overuse of their eyes, the Nara are prone to brain damage from overusing and straining their yin shadow techniques, Akimichi can develop paralyzation from their body transformations if they aren't careful… so on and so forth. Every element type has dozens of dangers linked to it. Because children are not capable of handling the strain of some jutsu." Iruka walked around touching each of the clan heirs as he listed them.

"There are exceptions and shortcuts. Ways to get around negative jutsu side effects. People able to use jutsu at much younger ages, and etcetera."

The man gestured to himself, and then around him. "But in this classroom, I am your teacher. I don't care what clan you come from nor what you think you can do. I will ensure that no one in this classroom will use jutsu until I am able to strengthen your bodies to be able to handle the strain. Everyone is different, some will start sooner like Sasuke, some will start later. And that's ok. You don't rush it, no matter who tells you otherwise."

One could've heard a pin drop in the room.

"Is everybody clear why no jutsu will be used until I or another certified teacher gives you the go ahead?"

This time there were no "Yes, sensei"'s, only hesitant nods.

"…Thank you." Iruka took a deep breath. "Out of curiosity, I have to ask, is there anyone who can use a kind of jutsu outside of Nin, Tai, or clan related?"

Everybody seemed to perk back up from the anchor of dread the previous discussion put them under. Iruka craned his head around not surprised until a voice behind him caused him to turn to one of his demonstrators.

"I can Iruka-sensei. I can use genjutsu." Yuuka awaited a lecture or a negative reaction from Iruka. He surprised her by giving a relieved sigh instead.

"Ah, genjutsu. Much safer. Can you perhaps demonstrate the jutsu or if you can't, explain what it does, please." Iruka spoke gently no doubt trying to reassure her.

She nodded slightly before casting her eyes around the room. _'27 people might be pushing it… but… '_ Yuuka thought to herself and allowed her head to roll side to side before deciding that she would try. This would be a test of her own ability, given she wasn't going to be using the amplifying necklace. She was rather curious.

Five well practiced hand-seals and Yuuka intoned the jutsu.

" **Jade style: Whirlpool**."

Iruka allowed the jutsu to take hold despite his lips twitching in amusement at the dramatic tone Yuuka's voice tried to take. His vision gained a green tinge and then faded back to normal. The class grew restless as they waited for something to happen. Iruka waited a second and went forth to console the young girl.

' _It was a good attempt. Her chakra activated but she didn't have the needed amount to contin-'_ Iruka's thought was interrupted as he fell through the floor and was swept up in a raging ocean. Despite knowing it was a jutsu, the sounds of twenty-seven panicked screams caused his emotion to take over. He was still gathering the chakra to dispel the illusion when it broke.

The entire class was flabbergasted when they were suddenly brought back to reality with a sound like breaking glass. Bewildered eyes glanced around at each other and at the suddenly suspicious floor beneath them.

A loud gasp from Hinata caused the class to look at her. "Yuuka, are you okay?" The class turned to see Iruka already taking hurried steps towards the Hokage's daughter. She was paler than before and sweat dripped from her face. She was leaning heavily on Iruka's desk as she gave a trembling thumbs up in response.

"Deep breaths. Don't strain yourself." Iruka pat her back as he gave advice. The class shuffled as they watched one of them nearly collapse from a jutsu.

Once Yuuka was breathing steadily and was able to stand on her on Iruka addressed the class and their obvious discomfort. "Yuuka demonstrated an amazing use of a genjutsu. An illusion based jutsu that caused panic. In combat, it would've given her time to either finish the fight or run. Genjutsu is something that takes a lot of control and something we will learn alongside Ninjutsu. But only when I allow it. While safer, genjutsu was it's own risks such as chakra exhaustion like you just saw or headaches and chakra imbalance."

More nods and darting eyes between Yuuka and Iruka.

The teacher turned and addressed Yuuka directly. "That was great Yuuka. A decently detailed illusion. I'm sure it would give a few chunin a run for their money." Iruka gave her a small smile and ruffled her hair as he praised her.

Yuuka allowed a tired smile to show while she accepted Iruka's congratulations. "Cool…"

"So, do you know what went wrong when you used the jutsu?" Iruka was testing her she knew, trying to see how much she knew about genjutsu and what other knowledge she might have.

"Too many targets. The genjutsu web was easy hold when everyone was waiting but when they started panicking the web was yanked around and I used too much chakra trying to stabilize it. The jutsu broke." Iruka nodded his head to her answer but elaborated for the class.

"Genjutsu is able to subject someone to an illusion by using a 'caster's' chakra to sink into a 'subject's' chakra and use it to feel or see whatever the jutsu caster wants. What Yuuka did was impressive because she did it for 27 people and was able to keep it going for a second until her chakra ran out and she lost control of the illusion. All of you will learn genjutsu as well, again, after we fully release and then develop your chakra."

A lot of the children started whispering between themselves at learning this. Though a few seemed quite eager to learn, the majority of the more rambunctious characters looked disinterested at best.

"Genjutsu is difficult to use because so many variables depend on a 'caster's' ability to ensnare a person. When you're calm, the illusion tends to be easiest to control, but everyone's dormant chakra flared in panic as the water hit. That was why Yuuka wasn't able to keep the genjutsu stable." Iruka waited for the expected nods before continuing.

"Yuuka's genjutsu was a beginner jutsu because it didn't influence your senses nor did it have a detailed environment. The water had no sound, smell, or taste. The sky was blurry and unclear plus the entire jutsu indicated it's starting with a green flash." The class stared at their teacher in amazement. They hadn't noticed any of that and the jutsu only lasted for a few seconds.

Iruka basked in the adoration before clapping his hands. "Whew… You know, I think that will be enough for today's… introduction." he cleared his throat.

"Welcome to the shinobi academy. Please come prepared tomorrow; we start learning how to be shinobi. Remember about the weapon sets, and I would also advise everyone bring some sort of high calorie lunch, and plenty of water. If you either can't afford the kunai and shuriken, or can't get them in time, they will be temporarily provided for you. Don't expect that to be forever though."

"Yes, sensei."

"To be honest, each one of you start saving money for your future equipment. I wish I would have done more of that when I was younger…" the man shook his head. "But, yeah. Hmm. Is there anything else…?"

"Isn't there supposed to be two sensei per class?" Shikamaru questioned. "What happened to the other?"

Iruka snapped his fingers. "Oh right! Mizuki! Yes. He should be here later tomorrow, I believe he's out on a mission…" the new sensei shrugged. "Other than that, I do believe that's it. Each one of you keep in mind what I said. You are dismissed."

Most of the kids began to exit the classroom. A few 'bye's were passed back as the children made their way for the exit, chatter breaking around the same time. A certain redhead didn't bother engaging in such activity.

"OH! If you don't have a guardian or family member to come pick you up, please be careful on your way home!" Yuuka heard Iruka call to everyone flooding into the hall from the room behind her, as she silently separated from the group of her new academy class, turning to the left to go further in, instead of the right towards the entrance. Many heads turned as she did so, though she ignored them as usual, beginning to walk through the mostly empty building towards the main office building, where her father was.

' _That was… fast.'_ She had expected it to be longer. Maybe it would have been for a normal class. Though, she figured this class wasn't normal given it contained the majority of the clan's young heirs. Probably half coincidence, half being her father's influence. There seemed to be about a three year range between herself and all of them, some looking about a year older, and some looking about a year younger than her. A few were seemingly not ready or mature enough to think about trying to become shinobi yet.

However, that was the cost of being the child of being a child being raised to lead a clan.

Hinata Hyuuga, Kiba Inuzuka, Nara Shikamaru, Ino Yamanaka, Chouji Akimichi, Shino Aburame… and Sasuke Uchiha?

' _Is he even heir to the Uchiha?'_ Wouldn't that title go to Itami? She _would_ be the type to refuse it, though, wouldn't she? Just like Kiba's older sister did for the Inuzuka.

It only took her a minute or so before she was walking by the front desk and up the unreasonably long, circle-curved staircase.

' _What kind of idiot does elemental ninjutsu inside?'_ Surely he knew better. _'Show off.'_

She passed a group of shinobi talking amongst themselves and carrying stacks of paper, before rapping on the wooden door of the Hokage's office. "Hey, dad, it's me!"

A second later, she heard her father's voice. "Ahem. Excuse me gentlemen."

This was followed by two unknown voices. "Yes, sir."

"Yuuka! Come in!" The girl figured he must've been in the middle of a meeting, but to him, she was obviously of much higher priority. Brushing the red bangs that hung over her face aside, she slid the door open, meeting Minato's questioning face as he sat across the desk, and looks from the two Konoha jounin in front of him.

Yuuka lifted a hand in greeting, going to sit down on one of the benches along the walls. "Hey…"

"Well? How was it?" As he asked that, Minato pulled open a drawer, fishing out some object. As he lifted his hand out, Yuuka instantly recognized the object(s) as a small stack of ryo held together with a rubber band.

"Um…" She blinked. "It was… eventful."

"Oh? You'll have to tell me later." Minato raised a brow. "Anyway, Iruka told you about what everyone will need for tomorrow, right? Catch." with that he tossed the bills to her, which she caught.

"Um, yeah? What's this for though?" A look of confusion came over the girl's face as her eyes drifted between the ryo and her father.

His reply would have probably sounded average, had this been another family. "For you to go pick up a kunai and shuriken set." To her, it was slightly alien.

"Huh?" What was he talking about? Honestly, she really didn't pay that whole thing too much attention, as she figured she already had everything she needed at home. If she did, why was he wanting her to go get kunai and shuriken? "What for? I already-?"

"You might want to get familiar with the smith, and probably that whole commercial district in general. You're gonna be shopping at Koichi's a lot over the course of the next few years, hm?" Minato stated. "From now on, you're going to be buying all of your own weapons. It's an important skill, and maybe you'll break out of your shell meanwhile."

Yuuka's expression looked rather unamused. "But I already have kunai and shuriken? Why do I need to waste money on those stupid dull practice sets?"

Minato shrugged. "I did it when I was your age. And I wouldn't say it's exactly a waste of money if you don't actually own any…" a small smirk came to his face.

"Wait, what-?" Yuuka slowly leveled a dull glare at her father.

"It's a sunday. He'll be closing soon, and you already know Koichi's is top notch quality." Minato pointed a thumb behind himself, towards the village.

The girl simply stared at her father, before twitching.

"…Fine. I'll see you at home." As she was leaving, Minato called out over the snickering of the two jonin.

"Don't forget he's got a daughter in the academy as well try to make a fri-," The door closed and Yuuka rolled her eyes as she made for the weapon store near her home.

* * *

 **End**

 **Impassive Purple: Hope you enjoyed. Also, don't be shy, you're on the internet. Leave a review! Even though I'm the one who gets the emails, Terror stalks the reviews like a lion.**

 **xxTerror33xx: Multiple times a day. I like seeing the words of readers and what they like or don't. Next chapter is Naruto probably and some summon lands adventures. Fights, jutsu, and good ol' plot are strong in the next chapter. We will have it out as soon as we deem it ready. See ya next week (?)**

 **Impassive Purple: Yeah… Uh** **…** **Let's go with that.**


	8. Pushing Limits

**Impassive Purple: Hallo all.**

 **xxTerror33xx: Yo. Take our chapter. Guys, you are in for tons of original content from yours truly. We actually designed a map of the Summoning World for future plot reasons. And have a huge number of plot focused in the lands itself and it's various clans.**

 **Impassive Purple: We're hoping to explore some good stuffs before we decide to move Naruto into the Elemental Nations.**

 **xxTerror33xx: Of course canon will be explored as will Yuuka. On that note, I understand a lot of you are in this for Naruto but Yuuka will be given time here and there because she is important in the future. Maybe not full length chapters but little bits here and there to check in as she goes through the academy and learns to be a ninja. Plus Pre-canon and early canon events that are subject to change with Minato as Hokage as well as Yin based chakra techniques and kunoichi classes as seen through her eyes. It's not a usually explored and written thing. So naturally I wanna try to do it.**

 **Impassive Purple: Yep. For the next few chapters though, you'll be seeing mostly Naruto, and the summoning world. This chapter is pretty much the initiation of a much larger plot. That said, we changed our mind on the future some 50-odd times throughout the writing of this chapter, so if you see a bit of inconsistency, that's probably why.**

 **xxTerror33xx: Sorry. It's a bit ambitious but we think we can pull it off with some success.**

 **Impassive Purple: Here's to hoping the stars align. Enjoy.**

* * *

 _It was so sudden, so unexpected._

 _She was going to die. Surrounded by what was left of her family; what remained of her particular species. Her brothers the only thing between the force of nature turned summon. Her mother whimpered in fear and her father was trying to find a way out._

 _Granted, anywhere within viewing distance of these things was far too close. Going outside of the tortoise shell her tiny clan called home was suicide._

 _Her brother's barrier faltered with every hit, one of them was injured, his leg nearly separated from his body and still he held the barrier. But it was failing. Crack after crack splintered the tortoise shell. Kits screamed and yipped in a panic and fear. She didn't care because she was going to die and she hadn't even said bye._

 _What was going on!?_

"… **Badger's art: Beneath the earth**." Naruto shifted his foot, pushing his heel into the earth. Doing so, the hard packed ground underneath began to soften significantly, with him sinking into it until he was waist deep. The blond grit his teeth in focus, now pushing his hands together in the ram seal he had been taught, however this expression quickly turned into dull annoyance when the earth ceased it's quicksand-like behavior, leaving him stuck halfway under the earth.

' _Repetition… Repetition…'_

" **Stupid brat, why can't you be consistent at least?** " The worn voice groaned behind him causing Naruto's eye to twitch in annoyance. " **First, you sunk too fast and nearly buried yourself alive; now you aren't using enough chakra and getting stuck halfway. Not to mention how slow you sink! Can't you get it right yet?** "

It was another drop in the bucket, with his already declining mood over the past week or so. _'Tch…'_ Naruto took a deep breath. "Oh, yeah, yeah! Becoming a master, _As. We. Speak!_ Give me a second." he rolled his eyes. "Crazy ol' coot."

Naruto was already once again running through hand-seals satisfied with getting the last word when his head was suddenly knocked forward followed by a gruff laugh from his tormentor-sensei. " **I might be crazy boy, but at least I won't get myself killed trying to do the easiest Doton jutsu created.** "

' _Easiest…'_

The boy let out a low growl, pushing against the ground and pulling his lower half out of the dirt. "Really…? So easy, huh?" Naruto's sarcasm was palpable as he knocked the remaining sediment from his wooden shoes, and wiped the sweat from his mildly tanned face, not minding that he essentially just covered himself in even more dirt.

"Ya know what…? I'm hungry." he began to trek towards the slightly inclined exit of the burrow, grumbling to himself before calling over his shoulder. "And forget this! I can do this on my own; you can shove it-!"

" **No lunch until you get this down, boy. Try again! We ain't wasting another day on this.** " he pounded a paw into the ground, the thump lifting the earth a few inches in front of the blonde. " **Do you want to do this, or not? I could just as easily toss you in that ravine and wait for your mother…** "

Naruto stopped and spun, glare meeting the war legend's eyes. Even in the relative darkness of the large hole in the earth that his sensei called 'The Den', Naruto could make out Tien's lumbering form.

Despite having a boss-sized reputation, Tien was on the smaller side of the summon size spectrum. Tiny in comparison to most but still towering over Naruto's diminutive height. Like most of his species, he was stocky and wide comparable to a walking boulder but his chakra pool eclipsed boss summons just like his human student. Unlike his student however, Tien had grown into his chakra pool fueled by fighting in two wars and surviving in the dead lands.

Not that it stopped him from being a boss sized pain in the ass when he was lecturing Naruto on his frequent failures. "Yes? Explain it again then coot-sensei."

White fangs flashed in amusement. " **First, you release chakra into the ground spreading the hard packed earth into loose soil, then you coat your body with chakra and allow yourself to slide downwards without any friction. Simple.** "

"What?! No, it's not just that 'simple'!" Naruto narrowed his eyes. "You make it sound easier than walking!"

" **That's because I learned this nearly before I could walk, brat. Days out of the womb.** "

' _Huh… ?'_ At Naruto's confused look, he elaborated. " **Our legs take a while to strengthen, but we can use this jutsu to get around until we can support ourselves.** "

Once more, Naruto was forced to watch as his sensei lit up with chakra and completed the jutsu. Rock turned into sand and Tien's ten foot frame disappeared under his student's feet.

"You've showed me that before…" Naruto blankly stared down, watching as the badgers large head emerged out in front of him.

" _ **Days,**_ **boy. How old are you? Seven? You can learn this, even with your weird-ass, overdeveloped chakra.** "

"Don't give me that bullshit, you had time to grow with your chakra!" Naruto countered indignantly. "Plus I'm _pretty_ sure I have three different kinds, one of which I don't even know to use, and the other is just- agh!"

" **It's still your chakra. Use it. It's not some grand puzzle. Toughen up, boy. You think you're gonna get anywhere by holding back?** "

"Tch." Naruto grit his teeth, cursing under his breath. "Fuck that- No. That stuff is… It doesn't… _feel_ right… like my chakra does..." As if something was coiling inside him, making him sick to his stomach, and causing pangs much like those of hunger.

" **And?** "Tien stared at the blond expectantly. " **Is that supposed to mean something?** "

"Uh, yeah! Chakra shouldn't hurt to use!" Naruto declared weakly.

" **No pain, no gain, boy. Get used to it. If you plan on fighting anything, you're gonna get knocked around like a cat playing with it's prey. 'Shit hurts. If you survive, you'll live.** "

"What the hell is that supposed to mean!? How am I even supposed to fight when my own chakra is working against me!?"

" **The thing is, you aren't fighting right now. Right now, you're pussing out of learning to utilize** _ **your**_ **chakra, and failing at using a technique little-tiny badgers are capable of doing because 'it hurts'. So are you going to buck up or not?** " Tien lowly growled. " **And, brat, if I hear anything other than a 'yes', you'd better be prepared to eat dirt.** "

Naruto didn't reply, putting his hand together and concentrating.

" **Badger's art: Beneath the earth!** "Down Naruto sunk, inch by inch continuously until he felt the same snag as always. His neutral blue chakra was being overwhelmed by the black and red. Almost subconsciously, a piece of his mind was diverted towards fighting to keep them away. Once Naruto was waist deep, he glared into his sensei's eyes and crossed his arms in a gesture that stated something along the lines of "What now, _sensei?_ ".

" **Keep going, boy. Why'd you stop?** "

"You know why I stopped! Once the red and black crap starts creeping, everything goes haywire! It's hard enough separating them!"

" **So don't.** _ **Use them**_ **… Does everything I say just go right in one ear and out the other?** "The simple reply stumped Naruto. " **STOP thinking of it as it being the valley's and start using it like it's yours. It IS yours. The red is no different. It's there. Use. It. Think of it as a whole instead of three separate parts, brat.** "

Naruto simply grunted in frustration.

This time Tien pulled him out of the ground by rising from below him and sinking back under once Naruto was on solid ground. " _ **Again**_ **.** "The voice was muffled but still understandable.

" **Badger's art: Beneath the earth…** " _'Don't, don't, don't…'_ Instead of trying to redirect the extra chakras, he pushed it all down into the ground. Everything he could focus. Along with it, the small jolts of pain, and the internal feeling of something tightening it's grip on him. He was forced to bite his tongue until it bled to keep himself mentally centered, while beads of sweat began to gather on his body. His heart accelerated in rhythm, and his blood grew warmer under his skin…

It settled; saturating the rock beneath his feet. Naruto drew in a deep breath and spread his feet, motioning the chakra to soften the earth. To his surprise, the rock softened without resistance. Already sinking from his weight, Naruto allowed the tri-colored, no, _his_ chakra to coat him and he easily sunk in response. He took a great breath in anticipation for the excepted snag and just in case he succeeded and managed to submerge.

His excitement increased when he continued to disappear past his point of failure, and at quite a quick rate. ' _Stomach. Chest. Head… Yes!_ In the excitement, he opened his eyes–not quite thinking–but instead of dirt, he came nose to nose with his sensei, who was grabbing his arm to pull him out before he sunk too far.

" **Told you it was easy, brat.** "Many would of called Tien's scarred visage scary, but to Naruto it was a proud smile, and it caused his own face to break into a grin in response. " **Now, just do faster. And maybe learn how to get yourself out while you're at it.** "

Naruto was already rising back up in preparation, lunch long forgotten.

* * *

Squinting into the sunlight, Naruto gave himself a mental pat on the back for completing his first jutsu. _'Phew…'_ He was already looking forward to his next jutsu something called "sinkhole burial".

That would be interesting.

He didn't relish the thought of how difficult moving other people underground with him. Using his chakra to move something Tien's or sage forbid, Kaakaw-chan's, size. His chakra coils were aching already…

" **-ruto. Naruto. NARUTO."** Kaakaw-chan's voice pierced through his jutsu daze. It probably helped that she altered her flight from 'smooth glide' to an almost ninety-degree dive.

"What? WHAT!?" He doubted she could hear him over the sound of airy death but she somehow heard his call and flattened out to smoother flying taking them to the nesting cave they called home.

" **Are you alright little one? You've been… quiet."** Her odd motherly concern was touching and Naruto smiled despite her not being able to see him.

"Yeah… I'm- I'm alright. I'm just thinking about just how I'm supposed to use jutsu to fight summons as big as you and sensei." His hands briefly tightened as a rumbling snort shook his ride.

" **You're a long way off from being able to fight anything. Don't get a big head because you've got one jutsu under your belt…** "She chided gently, not completely breaking his after-jutsu glow. " **Tien and I are much more dangerous compared to you and most summons. Very few would come out of a fight unscathed. But there are some summons, and humans like you, capable of making us look like children.** "She admitted this unashamedly, more concerned over her 'son' getting into trouble he couldn't handle.

"I know, I know…!" Naruto huffed, before his stomach growled. He frowned. "Hey Kaakaw-chan? You think we can find something to eat…? I haven't-..."

His words were cut short, as his eyes suddenly lost focus. A dizzy spell. _'Wait…'_

" **Naruto?** "the giant vulture questioned. " **Could you repeat the last part, I couldn't hear you.** "

' _Oh.'_ Naruto blinked. "Oh yeah, I said; I haven't really eaten anything since before you dropped me off with Tien-sensei…"

" **Oh? Hm… We should be able to remedy that… Tighten your grip.** " she took a gentle turn towards the direction of the river, a portion much closer to the forest. Although this was a much wider and more inhabited area, it would be easy enough to sit there and pluck fish for him to eat. And if anything bothered them, then she would get her fill as well.

* * *

Landing carefully, Kaakaw-chan was already surveying the lightly vegetated area and the massive water channel for predators that would be willing to come from the deep; the heavy shifting of water alerting her of creatures stalking, but hesitant to approach them.

Naruto grabbed tighter onto her feathers as Kaakaw-chan leaned back to let him descend, of which he did. The blonde took several seconds to do so before landing on his feet in the hot sand with a flash of mild pain in his head. "Ow." The huge motherly vulture in front of him was meanwhile still glaring down the water, and all of it's inhabitants, daring them to move closer, but still had awareness enough to give a questioning noise in which Naruto responded, "Mm. Just a bad landing, I'm fine."

The bubbling water and large crocodile shapes shadow in the water was rather unnerving. Despite this, Naruto turned his back. Looking towards the vegetation, the blonde started for the trees, barely noticing the lack of color in the world as it vanished from his vision. His stomach growled. " _Ugh… Hold on._ " he murmured to himself, glancing back and confirming that Kaakaw-chan was still engaged in staring the river's inhabitants into obscurity. Looking up one of the trees in front of him, the boy had to hold his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun with a grunt of dissatisfaction. Only when his eyes spotted the type of fruit he was looking for did a small smirk grow on his face.

" **Naruto? Have you found anything?** "

"Yeah, Kaakaw-chan!" he let out, before stepping closer to scale the tree, grabbing onto it and climbing it with a swiftness that denoted him having done this many times before in his life. Comparatively, the tree was about twenty times his height, but he came within contact range of the fruit in a matter of moments.

Hugging the trunk with his legs, he slowly and carefully reached for the odd looking–very hunger sating–thing that looked like a strange breed between a pinecone and a banana. The only real difference between those and their regular counterparts being this one could probably feed a family of people, and didn't grow in groups. Naruto had to use both hands to grab it, though ripping it from the tree would be another matter altogether.

The boy grit his teeth as he began to jerk the thing back and forth, while making sure to avoid the potentially blood drawing spikes the fruit had on it's pinecone-esque exterior. Eventually, realizing it wouldn't fall so easily, Naruto let out a short huff. Releasing it, he hugged the tree again and went further up.

Kaakaw-chan would occasionally take looks in his direction to assure he was still stable. She wasn't entirely worried, but a fall from a height where she wouldn't be able to catch him would probably be pretty detrimental even despite the relatively soft sand. If there weren't currently a beast a third her size swimming in the depths of the water and casually waiting to seize a moment of weakness, she would have probably helped him out by now to rip down the stubborn plant-offspring. And possibly the entire tree along with it, if it didn't come down before then. Alas. He seemed to be handling it well on his own anyhow.

Naruto where the tree started to sprout green vegetation. Long fronds, and along with it, the root of the fruit's connection to the tree. The thick stem was about as large around as his lower arm, but his plan wasn't to break it in the slightest. He didn't even notice that the tree was beginning to look far less alive than when he had first touched it, the green slowly turning into an ugly brown spreading from his touch.

The boy grabbed the frond with his hands, which was easily able to support his weight, and used both feet to stomp downward onto the banana-cone's top. It was slightly awkward due in part to the shape, though the upsides were that his sandal shielded his feet from being impaled, and that the position infinitely increased just how much force he was able to put into breaking the fruit off the stem.

"One… Two… Three… Four… Five… SIX!" Naruto grunted with each stomp, and the fruit was nailed in the perfect position that it dislocated from the stem holding it, sending it downward to the earth. The boy let out another huff, this time of success, before receding and scaling downward back to the base of the tree.

Once he was far enough down, he jumped off the trunk, landing with a small wobble and another annoying flash of pain. "Hn…" he grunted. Shaking his head, he turned to the fruit.

"I got it Kaakaw-chan!" he yelled over his shoulder, reaching his hand into where it was disconnected from the tree. Just like a normal banana, except not as neutral colored; more of a light blue-green. Naruto pulled out a chunk with his hand and tasted it. Sweet. "It's a good one too!"

" **Hmm. Perfect… But it seems our river dwelling friend is getting somewhat-.** " more bubbles rose to the surface, before water rushed to clear off the back of one of the scaled monsters closest to them, in turn cutting Kaakaw-chan's snark short. Both herself and Naruto figured it must be the leader of the group, or had taken the initiative, given it's approach.

" **Grrrrrrrahhh…** " The crocodile's mouth opened the barest amount and let out something akin to a growl in their direction. An attempt to be intimidating would have usually worked on many other creatures; but a bird three times it's size was not one of them. It probably knew that. Then again, it seemed to have numbers on it's side. Others of it's kind, of similar size, seemed to be hovering under the water waiting for something to happen or an order. Depended on if this group worked in a hierarchy or not, though that was unimportant.

Kaakaw-chan narrowed her eyes further, and Naruto frowned. " **-antsy…** " the giant unfurrowed her wings. " **We should probably leave soon, Naruto. Unless they would prefer conflict?** " her calm, mildly booming voice seemed to almost ask the surfaced beast. For several seconds, it remained still, and she almost wondered if it understood her. Though that question was answered when the massive crocodile let out a hard breath, then quickly slunk backwards and back underwater.

Naruto shrugged, starting to break off the scale shaped, sharp appendages of the fruit. With a sound like wood breaking, the fruit was broken open and Naruto hurriedly dug in. His eating was interrupted when his feathered parent picked up the fruit and casually broke it in half using her beak. He couldn't keep the slight twitch out of his eye at the ease she went about eating.

The first time he had partaken of this particular type of fruit he had splintered the bone of his knife, lost most of the skin off his fingertips and stabbed himself on it's spines. It had been humiliating being beat up by something that didn't even move. In the end, Kaakaw-chan had simply stabbed it and opened her beak to spread the hardened peel and allow him to tearfully eat from it's much softer insides.

The memory caused pricks of pain to erupt across his hands and chest but he shook it off to gorge himself on his hard earned food. Shoveling blueish-green sweetness in his mouth by the hand full, he allowed his eyes to wander over the now sagging trees and falling fronds. _'Weird,'_ he thought, _'it's the middle of summer why are the trees losing their leaves? Maybe the crocs shook them for the fruit. Do they eat fruit though?'_

Glancing up at his mother-figure and seeing her staring at the trees with bewildered eyes made him hesitate and decide to eat more before asking what he thought. Already closing his eyes in anticipation he pushed another bite into his mouth… and then nearly vomited.

Naruto's eyes teared up as he started spitting the mouthful out and hurriedly used his hands to scrape the leftover bits from his mouth. "What the hell!?" The blonde child sent a betrayed gaze at the fruit only for it to switch to confusion at the sight of the fruit that was now brown and wrinkled.

" **Naruto?** "

His gaze switched to his nest mother and found that even though she was mere feet away, he couldn't see her. "Huh?" Everything was blurry and dark was creeping along his vision and he felt so numb suddenly. A coppery tang replaced the taste of rotted fruit and Naruto felt his mind start to wonder where black mist came from before he passed out.

* * *

Her wings flapped urgently pushing her faster and faster towards her son's sensei. Panic gave her extra energy to push harder against the slightest hint of a head wind which predictably broke against several tons of worried mother and the hurricane force winds propelling her.

After seeing her 'son' fall prey to another one of his chakra episodes, she had given him space and waited for it to run his course as had become routine over the past three years. Steeling herself, she waited for his skin to blacken and molt and for his eventual reawakening. Instead marks across his stomach flared to life and Naruto started to scream.

The new situation alarmed her but what caused her to finally leave to get help was when the marks on his stomach started to diminish from the outside in and Naruto's chakra grew tainted. His screams had turned into animalistic sounds of agony and her last look at him was of chunks of skin levitating from his body to show a writhing mass of ebony and crimson beneath.

Her landing was more of a crash, and it startled the den's only occupant into appearing outside before she could call him.

"Huh…? Bird what are you…?" From his drowsy look, she had woken him up but despite the sleep in his eyes, the old badger had taken one look at her and demanded "What has the boy done? What's wrong with 'em now?"

" **I don't know.** " In the deafening silence that followed she wondered if three words would ever scare her as much as those did. " **But you need to come with NOW. He's down by the river base; I can't leave him there…** "

Tien looked shocked but quickly lumbered over to her and allowed himself to be hefted into the air and towards his student. "I hate flying…" He murmured in discontent as she took off.

An eternity seemed to pass as she flew back just as quickly. The river front was easily seen from how it's flora was brown compared to the comparative green everywhere else. That and the numerous crocodiles, five or six, that lumbered from one specific bend of the water. The closest thing to a growl that a bird could produce reverberated through her body at the sight.

"I'd be surprised if they weren't getting closer; free food. Not very much of it though." Tien started, morbidly. "Though I can feel that damn chakra from here, imagine being right next to it." Kaakaw-chan angled herself towards the crocs, both of them flying in at top speed. She wasn't entirely sure at this point what she was doing, but Tien had to know something about what was happening. When questioning herself who else could help, her next destination was already in mind.

"Oi, bird, drop me!" he growled over the rush of wind.

Immediately, Tien was released from her clutch, letting him fall to the sand in front of them. "EY, YA SCALY GROUP FEEDERS! I DON'T THINK THERE'S MUCH HERE FOR-" As soon as he touched ground, he slammed his front legs forward and the earth rippled in front of him, the giant crocs being pushed slightly back, snapping and hissing. "YOU!"

At this point he could feel the burning chakra on his back emanating from Naruto, roasting him as if he had been laying out in the sun for hours on his front. The scarred up badger ignored the pain, rearing back and slamming his paws together. " **Badger Art: Landslide!** " He roared.

Sand immediately rose in a great wave from the point of contact and gave the crocs pause as Tien's meager form and chakra surprisingly caused a land-based wave to suddenly appear, the substance seeming to part around them as it made a path toward the river. And with the sand clouding their vision, they didn't see the wave of stone, rock, and trees battering into them until it had practically smashed their snouts. With this overwhelming force, despite their formidable size advantage, the crocs were practically thrown back into the river and quickly buried under tons of water, sand, and debris.

Kaakaw-chan hadn't bothered to land, knowing what she had to do. This was no normal chakra network meltdown. Not that such was normal anyhow, but this was something much worse. Neither she or Tien could handle this… " **Tien! I'm going to get the fennecs for help! I'm trusting him in your hands until I get back; keep him stable if you can!** "

He finally turned full attention to the kid, and saw the state he was in. Certainly not the worst he had seen in his life, but the boy didn't look much for moving. Or breathing. In fact, that chakra was burning him to a crisp. Was the vulture insane?! His nature chakra was barely visible around the edges picking up what little fell from the red chakra that cloaked his student's body.

"HUH-?! STABLE!? BIRD, I KILL THINGS! I CAN'T HEAL SHIT!" He yelled with all his might. Unfortunately his incredulous words fell on the wind she left behind, the force of her wing beats easily creating a mini sandstorm in a straight line behind her, even as high up as she was. "Tch. Kid, you better not die, or I'm gonna get tossed around this fuckin' valley like a damn play-toy!" His groans of exasperation echoed through the empty river bend. That is, until the crocs began to move again. Tien turned his sights back to the massive beasts, who were hissing in frustration, having apparently toughed the earthen technique with endurance to spare.

"Oi, you want round two!? I AIN'T GOTTA KEEP YOU ALIVE, YOU SCALY FUCKS!"

* * *

 **End**

 **Impassive Purple: Reading this over, I feel pacing issues throughout, but I'd hope it's not too glaring. It is meant to be a "fast" toned chapter, but I'm not sure it's supposed to read so… fast. Or jumpy, maybe. It's not too long but... Anyhow, as always, we do enjoy the reviews. We know we suck.**

 **xxTerror33xx: Hope you enjoyed. And everyone who can, I hope you get to see the Eclipse on the 21st. Be sure to wear the protective glasses and to keep any pets inside because they can suffer the same eye damage.**

 **Impassive Purple: Good advice.**


	9. Flight, Feathered Fights

**Impassive Purple: Chapter 9. Yay.**

 **xxTerror33xx: In our defense, Irma tried to wreck house. And that is the reason this chapter was so late. Winds were serious like howling.**

 **Impassive Purple: Irma touched me. She touched me inappropriately.**

 **xxTerror33xx: Obviously we are both okay but some people aren't so donate or help out if you can. In other news, here are words written by yours truly and Purp. Next chapter is going to be where things… diversify** _ **further**_ **from canon and where plot smacks you in the face.**

 **Impassive Purple: Mmm. Probably. As if this fic hasn't already completely took the turn lane away from canon. Anyhow, enjoy.**

* * *

Naruto's eyes suddenly flickered open, his pupils adjusting to the lack of light, of which was in stark comparison to the daylight from seemingly moments before. At first, he almost thought he was blind. Thankfully, that didn't happen to be the case. Slowly, the blonde began to make out shapes and textures, assuring him that; no, he could still see. Moving was another thing. His arms and legs laid at his sides, still, while he stared into the infinite darkness of the sky. The blond blinked. Or the trees? Maybe both? If there were a moon, he couldn't see it.

The boy's mind was having trouble coming to terms with where exactly he was. The immediately prior jerk to consciousness certainly didn't help his state of awareness.

" _Huh…?"_ a small breath of confusion escaped his mouth. _"Where…?"_

His fingers twitched as he tried to move his muscles in order to remove himself from the cold earth below him. Unfortunately, he quickly realized this was the furthest extent of what he was able to move. _'What…? Why can't I… move?!'_ His voice was like a distant echo to his own ears. Naruto began to try more frantically, his expression turning from one of confused tranquility, to one of mild frustration and even worry.

" _Let… me… Come on…!"_ He growled. His fingers rapidly clenched and unclenched, the struggle not being rewarded in the slightest. His breathing began to grow oddly heavy with each grasp, despite him not moving much at all. The stamina he had possessed moments ago rapidly vanished, although what he felt was mostly mental fatigue.

All in all, he felt like a fly twitching on the ground. Maybe even less-so, as at least a twitching fly could move it's legs.

He let out a small whine of dissatisfaction, and gave it another shot. Followed by many more fruitless attempts.

Several minutes of trying later, the boy settled down, realizing nothing was changing. After a heavy huff, his eyes began to wander once more in each direction while he again tried to figure out where he was located. Disorientation dominated his other senses in the meantime. In fact, if it weren't for the visual indicators, he wasn't sure he'd actually be able to tell what up or down were. His back was on the ground, and he was facing up.

However, visual indicators there were, even with the enclosing darkness.

Trees meant a forest, and there was only one forest he knew of that was grand enough for the entire earthen floor to be shaded to the point of being unable to quite tell what color the dirt under him was; of which he was only able to see just out of the corner of his eyes.

Boujou's Woods. ' _Great.'_

The quiet was also rather disturbing, as he grew to notice after several moments more. Utter silence. It itched at his mind. No trees creaking, no birds moving or squawking with their intimidatingly barren tones, no leaves shivering. Eerie, uncomfortable, and odd; these were all words that came to mind.

It rather unsettled him.

"… _Huh."_ This was most certainly not a part of the forest he had ever been in, or recognized; though that wasn't exactly crazy, given he seldom went deep into it on the off chance he did actually go in. Both Kaakaw-chan and Tien had warned him how the forest only got more extreme the further in one went.

He couldn't help but to admire the sheer lifelessness of it all. It even felt like the trees themselves were dead. Focusing on it, he could say that the lack of energy flowing through them was borderline jarring. On the other hand, and quite the contrary, energy and chakra seemed to be flowing solely through the roots underneath him. Or, where roots should be.

Ordinarily, the roots of these trees could theoretically be twice to three times the tree's horizontal height in length, making them nearly impossible for anything to uproot while simultaneously allowing them to gather water from deep within the earth. That would be the only things that make sense.

The whole thing was strange in his opinion. If the roots were more than healthy enough to be blasting his senses with chakra, the above portions should be absolutely thriving. Naruto narrowed his eyes in mild confusion. _"Are they all… dead husks?"_ But that itself would make no sense if there weren't still leaves above, which there were just as brown and dead feeling as the trunks. Though that could be because of the scorch marks along several of the trunks. It didn't make sense because it seemed that only the biggest trees had the burns while the smaller ones were without. All of them were dead looking regardless of the size.

Naruto blinked, reeling back his mind from the depths of his thoughts. Though, those were mildly easy to lose himself in given his current predicament. His fingers grasped at empty air a few more times. _'Nothing…'_

How did he end up here? He was just by the river bank in broad daylight with kakaw-chan eating that fruit, when… Naruto frowned. He had definitely gone into another one of those coma things. Without a doubt. _'But that…_ _doesn't explain anything.'_

He racked his brain for clues, yet came up short for answers, only piling on the questions. His eyes widened. How long had he been unconscious? He remembered being told his longest time uninterrupted without feeding and watering was a week and a half. The longest he had ever been in the state of living decay was two months.

Even then, realistically, he could have been here for _days_. Instantly, this brought to question several other things; with one being chief among them. _'What happened to Kaakaw-chan…?'_ Absolutely none of the multiple times this happened to him, had he ever woken up without her being around. She would go without food before leaving him to his own, and as far as he was aware, there wasn't a single thing in the entire valley that could go toe to toe with her without losing it's life.

However…

Not only was she _not_ here, but he seemed to be unimaginably far from the nest, and she likely couldn't even get through the thick foliage and branches above. This particular forest was one of her greatest natural enemies.

He was stuck.

He was lost.

He was alone.

His throat dried. The dots connected, and suddenly he only felt that much smaller than he already was. That much more insignificant; that much weaker.

" _W-what the hell am I doing out here?"_

He couldn't move; he could barely see; and the only sound to be heard was his own breathing.

* * *

Dark feathers pummeled at the wind, propelling Kaakaw-chan through the air, until she could resettle into a glide. Each one of these wing beats caused sand, rock, and greenery below to be blown in the opposing direction. Although she was nowhere near the fastest flyer, this sheer strength helped her blitz through the valley air in pursuit of her destination faster than any creature she knew of could run. Her legs and feet were tucked close to her, in an effort to reduce her already massive wind resistance.

Spotting her destination, a positively huge–even in comparison to herself–tortoise shell mostly buried in the ground, her sharp eyes immediately registered the several anomalies that were circled around it. She shifted her weight backwards, causing her to flip mostly vertical with her wings now instead allowing her to slow in mid-air, grinding her speeds to the bare minimum of being able to stay airborne.

'… _ **Doki…?**_ _'_ She immediately recognized the bipedal nature of the creatures, clothed in fabric and animal skins; odd bodies covered in grotesquely bulging muscles. There were seven of them, by her count, all of which wielded huge wooden clubs, and could have easily matched a fifth of her height each. Alarm stoked like a fire in her mind.

What were they still doing anywhere near the valley? And why were they surrounding the fennec clan's home?!

' … _ **Hn?!...'**_ Their purpose was obvious when she noticed the fairly large crack in the tortoise shell, and that one of the larger Doki that previously had it's club raised was bringing the weapon down on it with an aggressive, mighty swing; the impact hard enough for her to hear even with the wind flying past her.

 _ **CRACK!**_

Plumes of dust blew out from all angles, originating from under the shell, showcasing the extent of the Doki's reputably massive strength. The hit was hard enough that an entire piece of the shell broke off, completely compromising whatever protection the fennec's had left.

Then the screams and yips of the foxes pierced the air. Or at least what was left of them. Even from here she could see the patches of sand discolored from the Doki's slaughter.

She had no idea what was going on, but that was enough information for her. Kaakaw-chan wasted no more time with observation, flipping back into a full dive. Her beak opened instinctively with a piercing screech that could have easily blown out a human's eardrums if they were right next to the source, as it rippled the air with the mere force alone. She extended her talons, and dropped in, aiming for the kill.

All seven of the Doki's heads turned in unison, but it was far too late for two them, who were impaled viciously through the chest without much resistance to speak of. Kaakaw-chan's weight drove their bodies into the earth with a loud crunch, and gore splatters consisting of blood, organs, and bone coated the sand.

Instantly, the remaining Doki were on the attack, the reaction time impeccable. Yet, there wasn't even a moment of pause as the female vulture's neck snapped downward, and she clamped her razor sharp through another one's neck. She tasted it's warm blood, and felt satisfied feeling the spine entirely sever, before whipping her head around to knock another through the air and across the ground like it were a high speed tin can. The thing let out a cut-short scream, sand coming up in the wake of its high velocity travel, limbs being torn off under the stress of digging its own grave through alternative means. She went to face the next one, though it appeared that her one sided assassination turned full-on offensive was suddenly curbed when she was forced to push out a chakra hardened wing to block the heavy wooden club from taking out one of her legs.

"… _ **Tchk!**_ _"_ She hissed at the pain. She should have expected it, given one of them was just able to break through a solid tortoise shell. Letting out another screech, she bat this one aside at , unlike the last, this one was prepared.

The Doki gave an heavy grunt as the club it was using to absorb the attack shattered into splinters, while it slid back through the sand; just managing to stay upright. Kaakaw-chan didn't have time to capitalize on this weakness, as the other three were running towards her, including the largest of them all who was dragging it's huge club behind it, the one responsible for the cracks in the thick shell of the long dead tortoise.

She let out a sound similar to a growl, and prepared herself. The vulture could immediately tell they had some semblance of team strategy for taking on larger opponents, as instead of charging right at her, the two smaller ones opted to circle around her. By this point, the one who had just taken the brunt of her attack had recovered, tossing it's broken weapon aside, turning towards the location of it's dead comrade and making a dash for it's club.

Flexing her wings outward, the avian began channeling chakra through her feathers. The left-most doki must have realized her intentions, as it turned it's dash into a reel, throwing his weapon wielding arm back, before bringing it forward fast enough to leave tracks through the air. As soon as it was at peak potential, the wooden object was unleashed at her.

Releasing the built up chakra, she beat her wings to each side, effectively sending her back into flight while screeching out the name of a technique. " **Vulture Art: Wind's Wrath!** " Fiercely howling air was displaced into blades at tornado-force towards the three, simultaneously kicking up enough sand, rocks, and dust that it could be considered an earth technique with that facet alone. The thrown projectile was entirely knocked off course as the wind blades soared in scatter-shot, peppering the entire area in front of her, some of them even powerful enough to grind through the earth.

The one doki going for it's dead comrade's weapon was unlucky enough to be in this path, one of the blades cleaving it's arm off, and leaving a deep gash in it's side bad enough to send it tumbling, obviously incapacitated unless it had enough will to keep on going. The others fared significantly better.

With a hard stomp to dig it's feet into the ground, the one in the center grabbed it's own club in both hands, bringing it forward to contact one of the biggest blades in it's path. While Kaakaw-chan would have previously thought the blades strong enough to have sliced through the wood, she was soon corrected when the doki managed to counter it without trouble; the only evidence of it having blocked such a mildly devastating attack being the scar in the club. Meanwhile, the one who remained weaponless was blown back enough to avoid being sliced to bits, but not out yet, and the one to the right of the others had been pushed away, though was surprisingly agile enough to dodge the blades produced by the technique in it's entirety through skill.

"G-GRAAAAAAHHHH!" The one now lying on the ground in pooling blood let out an extremely loud wail, opening it's mouth as much as it's body would physically allow, the restraining stitches entirely ignored as they tore through its skin. The creature's body writhed in pain, and it repeatedly lifted and thumped it's former limb, now stump, on the earth.

And something _shifted_. The single beat seemed to echo in the air around her and the remaining Doki. _Thump._ Muscles flexed in time with the beat.

 _ **THUMP.**_ Jaws filled with serrated teeth opened with a loud creak and noxious fermented breath seeped it's way through the air.

 _ **THUMP.**_ The necks and throats of the monsters flexed and bulged as something crawled up them.

 _ **THU-.**_ Then everything stopped as the drumming Doki seemingly bled out mid-beat.

A black feathered chest rose and fell in rapid and shallow breathing. Her pupils dilated in panic while sweat poured from her skin beneath the blanket of ebony down that didn't seem enough to keep out the sudden chill of horror that permeated the battlefield.

' _Wh-what!?'_ Even in thought she couldn't bring herself to formulate a thought about what had just occurred. Every instinct in her had suddenly screamed in sheer abject terror. She hadn't been that fearful in her life except for two moments: learning to fly for the first time and when Naruto had brought forth the full weight of his chakra. Both times had given time to recover afterwards but this one wasn't as accommodating. Her foes were shaking and shuffling in place after failing to complete what they were trying.

Seeing her chance, the avian was now allowed to go full into offense, and she took full advantage of the wake her previous technique left her. Her slightly shaky form rushed straight ahead, beak first, towards the bulkiest of the seven who seemed to recover much to her chagrin. If it was intimidated by this oncoming force, it didn't let on, lifting it's club in both hands once more. It's massive, grotesque muscles tensed to the point where she could see the skin stress to keep them contained.

As the distance between them closed, it began to move, getting ready for a swing. Kaakaw-chan's beak split the air directly in front of it, and it looked as if she was going to gore right through it's center without a problem, only being mere meters away. That was before the mass of bipedal muscle stepped forward, it's arms coming around, and it's club pushing through the air into an upper-cut within the blink of an eye.

Kaakaw-chan didn't notice any of it.

 _ **CRACK!**_

' _ **Hn-?!**_ _'_ The hard-wood made contact with the right-underside of her beak, the club shattering upon impact with the force. The avian's eyes widened, and she felt the shock reverberate throughout her entire head and neck.

" **KHA-!** " A hoarse squawk of surprise and impending agony was promptly cut off. The doki followed all the way through, redirecting her entirely. In the flash of pain that followed, she barely registered the fact the she was now barreling a path through the sand until she had come to a stop with the taste of bloody sand and dust on her tongue.

Lying there in the sand, her dazed eyes lost focus, with the warm rush of pain doing little to bring her back to her senses, until she heard the hard coughing and sputtering of the severed-armed doki from prolonged noises of affliction, and a tiny screaming voice; both inside her head, and out.

"BIRD! BIRD-CHAN! _"_

Tenko.

Kaakaw-chan's eyes snapped into focus and her feathers began ruffling, before she felt the heavy club of a doki smash into her right wing. She let out a screech, and could have sworn she felt something give way in the wing's structure. And then it happened again. A similar choked sound came from her heavily bruised beak. Tenko's voice rung out once more, and an image of Naruto flashed before her. Her blood then began to boil, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Another rumbling growl traveled through her throat, her feathers raising once again in pained fury.

Immediately, the avian's body whipped around, her head following suit as she rammed it into the offending doki, sending the creature careening through the air and into its crippled brother with a forceful grunt. Her wings then bolted out to full size, as she flipped into a standing position, standing up to turn towards the doki as a whole. A guttural battle cry exploded from her beak, with her now at full height.

She coated her feathers in chakra, launching forward and impaling her claws through the temporarily downed doki and it's fallen brother beneath it, and repeatedly and continuously lanced the talons into it until they stopped moving. She didn't stop there, beating her wings and bearing through the pain to send her into backwards flight to avoid the club of the largest doki. Apparently, it didn't much care about it's fellow species, as it didn't hesitate to stomp through the mostly dead cadavers in pursuit, swinging again to no avail.

The avian kept gaining altitude, wincing with each movement. That is, until she decided she was high enough, and twisted into a dive, crossing her wings, only to quickly thrust them apart to each side, releasing her technique as she fell back towards the earth. " **VULTURE ART: FEATHER STORM!** "

She moulted a carpet of feathers big enough for a boss sized summon to use; that was sent flying at the soon-to-be dead Doki. The jutsu was supposed to be used to scatter tightly grouped enemies for easy pickings. When she used it however, it launched a solid wall of death at anything in its path. The jutsu pierced the remaining Doki and buried them under several feet of sharpened fluff.

Kaakaw-chan landed heavily, sending dirt and dust billowing out from her point of impact. The only sound was her heavy breathing and the dust still settling from the blow-back of her jutsu. Her feathers swayed with the crosswind still blowing through the valley.

To her left, she could see the fennec foxes popping out of the shell no doubt eyeing the battlefield and the surrounding land. The pitter-patter of feet on sand reached her ears before Tenko appeared from the dust cloud still hovering around her.

"Bird-chan, are you okay!?" Despite the situation, Kaakaw-chan couldn't keep the slight smile from forming on her injured beak. Much like Naruto, Tenko had given her a nickname after trying and failing to pronounce her birth name and it had grown on her just as Naruto's did. Sparing a glance down at her son's friend she felt alarm spear through her breast at the sight of Tenko's rust coloration. The worry was quickly abated when she saw no trail of red. She still grimaced due to the amount of blood covering Tenko, as it signified that indeed, that something had died.

"… **Just a bit roughed up, little one. How are you?** "Kaakaw-chan replied kindly still keeping one eye on the field of feathers in case anything decided to get up. The smell of drying blood started to become more prevalent while she waited for Tenko to recover her breath. The distance between her and the shell wasn't much to a summon of her size but to Tenko it was a full on sprint to reach her in just a few seconds. The fatigue from the attack was also adding to the fennec's winded condition.

"I… I'm fine…" started Tenko still a little winded. "B-But… we got hit bad." Her tone was somber. The poor girl was nearly in tears and Kaakaw-chan's own eyes moistened in shared grief. "I-If you hadn't show up, I'm not s-sure we would have been able to last…"

Kaakaw-chan was quiet for a moment, staring at the clan home. " **How many…?** "She was almost afraid of the answer. The amount of blood that splattered the sands and the Doki's bodies was nauseating. Tenko's shudder was enough of an indicator that the amount of dead was too high.

"I-I don't know, exactly. The d-dead were mostly adults. My brothers are the oldest fennecs left after my parents. The rest are kits around my age and younger. I don't even think half of us are left…" The words were forced from Tenko's throat in between sobs and yips of loss.

Kaakaw-chan's form rocked gently at the devastating loss of life. For a animal clan to be suddenly cut like that… it was a disaster that hadn't happened since the lands had been divided centuries before. Even the previous Doki blood marches hadn't taken so many. They had been content with warnings with minor losses of life. What could have caused the Doki to suddenly try to wipe out the clan? And there was no doubt in her mind that the cause was the Doki because in all the time of animal Summoning existing, the foxes were exceedingly known to be docile and well-loved. Despite the occasional prank or trick the foxes were always quick to make amends with gifts and food. Not even the Slugs, the healers of the Summoning World, were as welcomed as the various fox clans scattered throughout the Summoning lands.

" **I'm sorry little one.** "Kaakaw-chan's words were as sincere and heartfelt as they could be. She nuzzled the grieving fennec in an attempt to comfort her for the loss of her family. Pained whimpering broke them out of the moment of shared comfort. Kaakaw-chan towered over the–much too short–parade of tiny foxes. She allowed another wince at the death of so many to be so blatantly shown.

"Feathered-Queen!" Kaakaw-chan perked up slightly at the unorthodox call to attention. Tenko's father, Osugi, was leading what was left of his clan. He was small even amongst his clan, just barely bigger than Tenko's diminutive frame. His fur was much darker nearly brown compared to the sandy tan color of most of his species. The small bit of fur that hung off his snout mimicked a human's goatee. He was a known scholar and fuinjutsu advocate. His use of his tail to draw fuinjutsu in the air or the ground allowed him his right to lead.

Following him was his mate, Zenko. She was an oddity amongst the rest of the fennecs, given she wasn't one in the first place; a cape fox. Her fur had a slightly gray tint even before she was covered in blood whether it was her clan's or the Doki was a guess. Under the blood however were the vast amount of scars littering her. Deep cuts to barely flesh wounds crisscrossed her body as a badge to the "Battle Queen" of the fennec clan. Just like her husband's love of fuinjutsu, she had quite the taste for battle and to some surprise healing. She had studied under the Slugs in her kithood and had grown amongst the Snake's caves during Manda's take over. Very violent times indeed. "…Vulture-san…" Zenko greeted politely, despite the situation. Her expression was desolate, and serious. One could tell the weight of what just happened was crushing her.

Kaakaw-chan acknowledged both somberly, her eyes still drifting over the rest of Tenko's immediate family. Her four brothers Amatsu, Kuko, Kiko, and Yako were well known outside the valley for their prodigious use of barrier ninjutsu and fuinjutsu alike. Being a rare birth of quadruplets had already given them some minor fame that increased as they grew up and used their numbers to support each other in nearly everything. They were blessed with their moniker of "The Four Pillars" after they had raised a barrier that stopped an avalanche from burying a lesser fox clan.

Those four were the reason she had come. Hopefully they would be able to lock Naruto under a barrier that would let his body recover without the nature chakra interfering, though that was before the Doki had attacked and now she was worried about getting them away from the prior battlefield and somewhere safe.

She had to wonder if there were more of the Doki around.

" **I… I'm very sorry for your losses.** " While her tone was washed with sympathy, in her head, she could only keep jumping back to the fact that she was wasting time in getting Naruto the help she had come here for. She had to be more tactful than just asking outright for them to come with her. Another thing was bugging her to no end, and she had yet to get an avian's eyes narrowed, her voice severe. " **Though, this begs the question; why were the Doki here? I was under the impression that they had long since crossed the valley for the south.** "

Osugi came to attention, his expression dazed and eyes downcast. "We don't know. Everyone was here and accounted for…" After this, quiet prevailed among them, small whimpers and weak crying doing little to break it.

Tiny foxes crowded around individual bodies in the sand, mourning their losses. Tenko kept taking glances to them, thinking about the other much smaller kits left, and then looking back to their clan home, worried about her brothers who had done their best to help defend against the Doki.

"No, this wasn't our doing." Zenko grit her teeth. "We didn't draw them towards us… We all know agitating them is tantamount to suicide."

" **They… were hunting you all? Without provocation?** "

A low growl was rumbling in the female fox's throat with her reply. "They shouldn't have still been in the valley, as you said. So, if not that, I don't know what."

"Feathered-queen… We're now further indebted to you. If you hadn't arrived when you did, I don't believe any of us would have made it." Osugi thanked her. "At least our luck hasn't failed us completely…"

Kaakaw-chan stared at them both for several moments; and it just so happened that every moment ticking by was a problem. She wasn't willing to wait any longer.

"… **Luck is not why I came here.** " She started. " **I intended to be meeting with you under-** "The avian let the situation speak for itself. " **-** _ **better**_ **circumstances…** "

"I see…" Osugi nodded. He didn't speak for a few seconds, and his next words weren't unexpected. "Unfortunately, I'm not so sure-"

Kaakaw-chan backed away, and lowered herself to the ground in something as close to a bow as she could manage. Her solid demeanor gave way.

" **Please, I** _ **need**_ **your help. Naruto is in danger of his own chakra killing him… I don't think he'll last much longer. You are the only ones I know of that can help him.** "She gave them an almost pleading stare." **…Please, if there's anything I'd ever ask of you; help me save my own child in return…** "

* * *

End

 **Impassive Purple: Good stuff. We were stuck on that ending for at least 80% of the time this chapter was in development. Joys.**

 **xxTerror33xx: Tell us how you enjoyed the fight and the new fennec clan members.**

 **Impassive Purple: We still have a bunch to introduce, probably in next chapter? Hope you enjoyed.**


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